MEN'S SWIMMING & DIVING

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Men's Swimmers Open Zippy Invitational in Fifth Place

Michael McDowell

AKRON, OH – The University at Buffalo men's swimming and diving squad got off to a fifth-place start as the first night of the 2007 Zippy Invitational concluded Friday evening at the University of Akron's Ocasek Natatorium. The Bulls scored 282 points on the opening night while Clarion tops the nine-team meet with 465 points.

Men's diver Michael McDowell (Rush, NY/Rush Henrietta) led the Bulls on Friday night with a record setting victory on the three-meter springboard. McDowell broke his own mark that he set when he won last year's meet, known as the SummaCare Invitational, as a freshman. McDowell scored 335.65 points for his six dives in the final round to eclipse the mark of 332.40 he posted at last year's meet for the pool and meet record. It is the third consecutive year that a UB men's diver has set the pool record. Cassidy Lynch set the record at the 2005 event. McDowell won Friday night's competition by a sizeable margin of 87 points over second-place finisher Ian O'Rourke of Niagara (248.40).

Connor Vander Zalm

Sophomore Connor Vander Zalm (Kelowna, British Columbia/Kelowna) set a pair of season-best times when he finished fourth in the 500-yard freestyle. Vander Zalm cut more than two seconds off his previous best when he turned in a 4:46.61 in Friday morning's heats. In the finals, he sliced four more seconds off his morning time for a 4:42.09 clocking and finished fourth overall.

Zach Ruske (Superior, CO/Monarch) also had a fourth-place finish on Friday night. Ruske posted a season-best mark of 1:54.75 in the 200-yard individual medley, just missing third place by four-hundredths of a second. Ruske posted an earlier season best in the preliminaries with his 1:55.40 clocking.

The Bulls earned a seventh-place finish in the 400-yard medley relay in 3:34.49 as Andrew Tamchyna (Newmarket, Ontario/Newmarket), Jordan Matthews (Burnt Hills, NY/Burnt Hills-Ballston Lake), Kevin Schuster (Rochester, NY/Greece Athena) and Ruske composed the foursome.

UB's 200-yard freestyle relay team of Sterling Gell (Lansing, NY/Lansing), Schuster, Richard Shi (Ottawa, Ontario/Merivale) and Colin Wilbert (Albion, NY/Albion) finished 10th in 1:28.55.

Competition continues through Sunday.

Team scores: Clarion 465, Xavier 440, St. Bonaventure 426, Shippensburg 330.5, UB 282, Duquesne 255, Niagara 207.5, Bloomsburg 180, Alma 37.