March 2, 2016
Day 1 Results | MAC Championship Central | Follow @MoStateSwim
YPSILANTI, Mich. - The Missouri State men's swimming team earned runner-up finishes in both relay races on the first day of action at the 2016 Mid-American Conference Swimming and Diving Championships Wednesday, March 2, at Jones Natatorium on the campus of Eastern Michigan.
The Bears completed a season-best and school-record time in the opening events of the MAC Championships, putting Missouri State in third place overall with 68 points. Eastern Michigan leads after day one with 72 points and is followed by Buffalo with 70 points. Southern Illinois (62), Miami (56), Ball State (52) and Evansville (48) round out the team rankings.
MSU had narrow runner-up performances in both relay races.
The Bears' opening 200-yard medley relay squad of Bryce Blattner, Uldis Tazans, Artur Osvath and Uvis Kalnins touched the wall in a season-best time of 1 minute, 27.89 seconds. They were edged by Buffalo's relay team by just .42 seconds - a school record showing for the Bulls. Both Tazans and Kalnins had the fastest splits among all second and anchor leg swimmers, respectively.
In another highly contested relay, MSU's 800 free relay squad of Kalnins, Michael Mollak, Kacper Cwiek and Will Brand completed an MSU record in the event, finishing in 6:26.48. The Bears topped their record set at last season's MAC Championships by 1.57 seconds, but touched the wall in less than a second behind first-place finisher Eastern Michigan. The Eagles broke the conference record mark previously held by the Bears.
Kalnins opened the 800 free relay by breaking the school record in the 200 free with a 1:35.02 leg, .60 seconds faster than the mark he set in the same event last year. Cwiek (1:36.39) also had the fastest time among all third leg swimmers.
"Our relays were good tonight, just not quite good enough to win," Bears head coach Dave Collins said. "We will take the two school records from tonight and use them as momentum going into a very important prelim session tomorrow."
The 2016 MAC Championships continue with preliminaries at 10 a.m. CST Thursday, March 3, at Jones Natatorium. Finals begin Thursday at approximately 6 p.m., with links to live results of the MAC Championships available on the Missouri State swimming and diving schedule page at missouristatebears.com. Live results are also available on the Meet Mobile application.
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