Sun Belt Championships: Day One in the Books

NASHVILLE, Tennessee, February 28. DAY one of the 2008 Sun Belt Conference Swimming and Diving Championships is in the books and after a hard fought day of intense competition and many record setting performances Denver and Missouri State's men's teams and Florida Atlantic's women's team are in the lead.

Denver and Missouri State's men's teams are tied after the conclusion of day one with 205 points and Florida Atlantic's women's team has 236 points.

One of the biggest highlights of the day included Florida Atlantic's Lauren Shue and Denver's Blake Worsley. Shue and Worsley both broke Sun Belt Championship records in the 500 freestyle. Shue broke the previous women's record, which she set in 2007, with a time of 4:51.06 while Worsley set an amazing mark beating out the previous championship time by over four seconds at 4:20.38.

In addition, many other Sun Belt championship records were broken throughout the evening. In the men's 200 freestyle relay Missouri State's team of Victor Serra, Dillon Burns, Andy Denefe and Ignacio Gayo set a new record when they clocked a time of 1:20.62 to beat out second place finishers WKU and third place Denver. In the men's 200 yard individual medley Missouri State's Serra broke his second record of the day when he finished with a time of 1:48.92 to take first place.

Denver's Katy Motsinger also broke an individual Sun Belt championship record in the 50 free as she posted a time of 23.18. The men's 50 freestyle went to Missouri State's Gayo. Gayo clocked in at 20.23 to finish first in the event.

In the final relay of the day, the 400 yard medley relay, the WKU women's team of Jessica Aspinall, Brittany Doss, Claire Donahue and Claire Alexandre and the Missouri State men's team of Daniel Vollmer, Marcus Christianson, Garth Summers and Blake Worsley both also set new Sun Belt championship records. The WKU women's team finished the race in 3:44.74 while the Missouri State men's team posted a time of 3:15.19. Both teams' times were almost two seconds faster than the previous championship records.

Also, in the women's 200 yard relay race, Denver's team of Motsinger, Grace Kittle, Melissa Greeves and Kelsey Totura took the crown with a time of 1:34.61.

Florida Atlantic's Lindsey Alexander took the gold in the women's 200 individual medley with a finals time of 2:03.23 and Missouri State's Serra set another record for the Bears in the event with a time of 1:48.92.

The men's one meter diving finals saw Denver's Aaron Feight win the gold as he racked up 357.40 points to finish in first place. Missouri State's Eric Ducourneau was second and WKU's Peyton Thomas finished third.

Finally, in the women's three meter diving finals Florida Atlantic won the gold and silver. The Owl's Sam Schlachterman won first place accumulating 248.25 points in the final round and teammate Lauren Harvath finished second with 244.60 points.

Special thanks to the Sun Belt for contributing to this report.

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