BROWN DEER, Wis. (Blugolds.com) – The UW-Eau Claire women's swimming & diving team is in first place while the men are fourth after the first day of the 2012 Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (WIAC) Championships at the Walter Schroeder Aquatic Center today.
The Blugold women scored 236 points while UW-La Crosse is in second with 217. On the men's side, UW-Stevens Point is in first place with 272 and UW-La Crosse is in second with 236. UW-Whitewater is third with 163 and the Blugolds are fourth with 162 in the six-team race.
Three Blugolds claimed conference titles while the Blugolds also came away with three runner-up finishes.
Alex Card (So.-Prior Lake, Minn.) led the Blugolds as he set a school and conference record on his way to winning the 200-yard individual medley title with an NCAA A-cut time of 1:51.21. The previous school record was 1:52.67, set by Blugold Hall of Famer Pat Anderson on March 5, 1988.
In the 50-yard freestyle, Julia Olson (Sr.-Faribault, Minn.) won the conference title for the second straight year with an NCAA B-cut time of 23.79, just off her own school record of 23.67 which she set at last year's WIAC Championship.
Angie Bakula (Sr.-Appleton, Wis./West) came away with the WIAC title in the 500-yard freestyle as she finished with a time of 5:06.65, more than two seconds ahead of the rest of the field.
Earning runner-up finishes were Kirsten Lickel (Sr.-Madison, Wis./East) with a time of 2:09.90 in the 200-yard individual medley and Nick Badilla (Jr.-Appleton, Wis./North) in the three-meter dive with a score of 509.25. The 400-yard medley relay team of Sara Eggebrecht (Jr.-Abbotsford, Wis./Colby), Lickel, Nicole Dorvinen (Sr.-Green Bay, Wis./Bay Port) and Olson was second with an NCAA B-cut time of 3:53.51.
The second day of the three-day WIAC Championships will get underway at 10 a.m. Friday.
-KM-
