MEN'S SWIMMING & DIVING

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ATHENS, OH - The University at Buffalo opened the 2002 Mid-American Conference Men's Swimming and Diving Championships with some strong individual performances. The Bulls scored 24 points in Thursday night's finals and stand eighth in the eight-team field. Eastern Michigan (247) and Miami (Ohio) (231) lead the competition.

Aviv Oren

The Bulls' lone scoring of the evening came in the 200 freestyle relay as the foursome of Kevin Kotowski (Wilmington, DE/Salesianum), Aviv Oren (Rishon Le-Zion, Israel/Makif A'), Tony Lizauckas (Buffalo, NY/Kenmore West) and Alan Lowe (Brownsville, TX/Hanna) placed seventh in 1:26.01. UB's other relay squad of the night, the 400 medley relay team, was disqualified due to a false start.

Although the Bulls did not place any individual swimmers in the finals Thursday night, UB swimmers posted seven lifetime bests against some of the toughest competition of the season.

Oren established a lifetime best in the 50 freestyle preliminaries with a 21.79 clocking, shaving two-tenths of a second of last week's previous best, 21.99 set at the ECAC Championships in Pittsburgh. He finished 21st in Thursday's competition.

Mike Szyprowski

All four UB entrants in the 200 individual medley established lifetime bests. Mike Szyprowski (Grand Island, NY/Grand Island) finished 30th in 2:00.34, Erik Schwarz (Fairport, NY/Fairport) was 32nd in 2:01.03. Geoff Wells (Waterville, OH/Anthony Wayne) placed 34th in 2:01.91 and Evan McCormack (Webster, NY/Webster) took 35th in 2:02.19.

Two lifetime bests were also established in the 500 freestyle as Jon Yarger (Centre Hill, PA/Penns Valley) was 19th in 4:42.66 and Lowe was 22nd in 4:43.32. Dustin Hui (Gardner, MA/Gardner) also turned in a 4:52.31 clocking in the preliminaries to place 32nd.

UB's one-meter diving tandem of Jim Taravella (Hamburg, NY/Orchard Park) and Jonathan Buck-Malarsky (Jamaica Estates, NY/Archbishop Molloy) narrowly missed the scoring column on Thursday. Taravella tallied 181.20 points to place 18th while Buck-Malarsky was 20th at 165.45 . The top 16 finishers score points in the meet.

Competition continues on Friday and Saturday.