HOUSTON, Texas - The 400 medley relay team finished fourth and four swimmers placed in the top 15 to help the University of North Dakota maintain its fourth-place standing at the 2010 C-USA Swimming and Diving Championships in Houston.
The Fighting Sioux are in fourth-place with 123 points. Southern Methodist leads the event after day two with 313 points, followed by Hawaii with 259 points and Cal State Bakersfield with 191 points. East Carolina sits in fifth with 112 points.
Senior Chase Fillingham (Bloomington, Ill.), senior Keisuke Yagi (Tokyo, Japan), senior Daniel Moraes (Salvador, Brazil), and freshman Ian McKenzie (Norman, Okla.) clocked in at 3:22.75 to finish fourth in the men's 400 medley relay.
"Our relays swam a lot better today than they did yesterday," head coach Steve Parsons said. "I think we got rid of those first-day nerves."
In the 200 I.M., Moraes and Fillingham both swam season-best times to place 9th and 11th, respectively. Moraes' time of 1:51.18 placed him at No. 3 all-time at UND, while Fillingham is now No. 7 with a time of 1:52.87.
Sophomore Nathan Jobe (Fergus Falls, Minn.) recorded North Dakota's highest individual finish of the day. He took seventh in the 50 free with a season-best time of 20.63. He is now ranked fifth all-time at UND. Also swimming season-bests in the 50 free were sophomore Ben Adams (21.20; 17th) of Sitka, Alaska, freshman Andrew Goll (21.87, 25th) of Baxter, Minn., and freshman Ben Swanson (22.19; 27th) of Sauk Rapids, Minn.
"Daniel and Chase really had strong swims for us today in the 200 I.M.," Parsons said. "Nathan has improved all season in the 50 free and today he has a great swim."
In the 500 free, freshman George Philbin (Plymouth, Minn.), finished 11th with a time of 4:37.48. He is now ranked No. 9 all-time at UND. Freshman Dominic Ponce (Loveland, Colo.) placed 19th (4:48.54), sophomore Anthony Swanholm (Fargo, N.D.) was 21st (4:49.36), senior Jeremy Blankenship (Studio City, Calif.) was 22nd (4:51.09), freshman Zak Gosney (Bainbridge, Ill.) was 23rd (4:52.42), and junior Nick Berrns (Saskatoon, Saskatchewan) was 25th (4:55.11). For all but Ponce these were season-fastest times.
"George has continued to grow for us all season and really had a great swim today in the 500 free," said Parsons. "We had a good day today all around and hopefully we can use what we did today to improve on tomorrow,"
North Dakota and the rest of the competing teams will be back start back up tomorrow at 10 a.m. with preliminaries and time trials. Finals begin at 6 p.m.
- Go Sioux -
