March 17, 2007

Results | Team Standings

BUFFALO, N.Y. - Through the last day of competition, the Wayne State University men's swimming and diving team held on to third place at the NCAA Division II Championship at the Flickenger Center in Buffalo, N.Y.

Drury University (665.5) won the championship, sweeping both the men's and women's titles, followed by the University of North Dakota (485). Wayne State totaled 360 points.

It marks Wayne State's third straight top 10 and its highest D-II finish ever. It ties the squad with the 1941 Tartars for the best finish of all time, as Wayne State tied-for-third with Ohio State that year behind Michigan and Yale in the Division I meet.

In Saturday's final events, two individuals and a relay earned First Team All-America honors and four others garnered Honorable Mentions.

Guilherme Veiga (Vinton, Va./William Byrd) finished fourth in the 1650 freestyle, posting a time of 15:43.89, while Jared Troyer (Portage, Mich./Central) placed ninth (16:11.54) and Matt Leix (Flint, Mich./Southwestern) came in 16th (16:37.11).

Per Bergstrom (Fagersta, Sweden) and Cauli Bedran (Rio de Janiero, Brazil) finished 13th (46.51) and 16th (47.12), respectively, in the 100 free.

Christer Tour (Farsta, Sweden) came in second in the 200 breaststroke, breaking David Collins' 2002 school record by .46 seconds with a time of 2:03.36.

Another WSU record fell in the 400 free relay, as the combination of Bruno Blanco (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), Tiago Oliveira (Raul Soares, Brazil), Luiz Pacheco (Curitiba, Brazil), and Bedran turned in a sixth-place time of 3:04.59, breaking the prior school mark by .08 seconds.