Men's Swimming and Diving | February 15, 2017

GENEVA, Ohio - The La Salle Men's Swimming and Diving team made a statement on the first day of the Atlantic 10 Championships, setting three school records. At the end of the first day of competition, La Salle sits in third place out of eight schools. The Explorers gathered 66 points through the day and are just two points behind St. Bonaventure and Saint Louis, which are tied for first place with 68.

The 800 free relay team broke a 30-year-old school record, finishing in an incredible 6:36.57. The previous record, set in 1986 was 6:42.12. What's more, sophomore Aleksandar Nikolic set an individual school record in the 200 free on the front end of the relay. Nikolic's time of 1:38.87 will now go into the record book after topping Carl Maler's 1982 record of 1:39.33. Nikolic was joined on the relay team by Jerry Gravel, Fabian Bergman, and Marcus Forsgren. The four swimmers took second place with the historic time.

The third record of the day was set by the 200 medley relay team, which clocked in at 1:29.42. The team consisted of Bergman, Dimitrije Mladenovic, Cameron Fadley, and Sam Odtallah. The old La Salle record of 1:29.67 had previously been set in 2012. 

"Nothing is better than seeing the teams' hard work pay off," Head Coach Jamie Platt said after the day's events. "Our men and women performed well tonight. Aleksandar breaking the 200 freestyle record leading off the record breaking 200 freestyle relay was great. Our men's 200 medley relay breaking the school record was impressive too. I believe this is just the start for these men and women to create a memorable meet."

A-10 Championship competition will continue tomorrow and continue through the week into Saturday. Tomorrow's competition includes the men's and women's 500 free, 200 IM, 50 free, 200 free relay, and the men's 1 meter dive. Prelims begin at 10:00 AM with finals events starting at 6:30 PM. Live streaming and results will be available through GoExplorers.com.