The Sun Belt Conference Swimming & Diving Championship kicked off Wednesday night with Western Kentucky University holding the early lead at the Rockwall Aquatic Center.
The Lady Toppers touched the wall first in the inaugural event, the 200 Medley Relay, with a season-best time of 1:39.95. The score was nearly two seconds faster than its previous best-mark of 1:41.89.
FIU won the 800 free relay and stands in second-place after day one.
WKU led the whole way in the first event as sophomore Allie Duff got the team off to an early lead in the first-leg with a 25.35 time. Sophomore Claire Conlon and junior Aiste Dobrovolskaite swam the second and third legs, respectively, and setup sophomore Paige Drazga to lead them to the win.
“We were hoping to get a conference record in this event and just missed it by one-tenth of a second,” said head coach Bruce Marchionda. “We are pretty excited about the next few days, but we know there’s still a long way to go.”
“I knew I had to get us into the lead early and this is exactly what we wanted to do to start out the night,” said Duff, from Ontario, Canada. “This is exactly where we expect to be (in first place overall) and we want to stay here throughout the Championships.”
North Texas and Florida Atlantic were close behind with times of 1:40.85 and 1:41.79, respectively. FAU freshman Agi Bucz swam the fastest individual leg in the race with a 22.75 time as the final leg for the Owls.
FIU and UALR rounded out the 200 Medley with respective times of 1:42.16 and 1:49.06.
In the 800 free relay, FIU was fastest to the wall with a time of 7:12.70 which was nearly nine seconds faster than its season-best time. North Texas kept pace and finished second with a time of 7:15.57.
The Panthers posted consistent scores from sophomore Johanna Gustafsdottir (1:48.02), junior Arau Perez (1:48.01), freshman Dani Albright (1:48.65) and senior Marina Ribi (1:48.02).
“It felt awesome (to win the event). We’ve been working so hard and training all season long for this so it makes us really happy to win this event,” said Ribi, a native of Schaffhausen, Switzerland. “We came here to win the championships, and winning the 800 relay shows that we are strong and on the right track.”
WKU finished third in the 800 free, as sophomore Susan Marquess swam the fastest leg in the event at 1:23.79. The Lady Toppers ended with a time of 7:17.28.
Florida Atlantic finished fourth at 7:18.33 and UALR touched the wall at 7:40.10.
Day two will begin at 11:00 a.m. on Thursday with the 500 free preliminaries, 200 IM, 50 free and the three-meter diving. The finals will start promptly at 6:30 p.m.
