East Carolina University
Conference USA Championships
Pirates Begin C-USA Championship Quest
February 24, 2011 | Swimming & Diving
Feb. 23, 2011
HOUSTON --- Day one of the 2011 Conference USA Swimming and Diving Championship and Invitational wrapped up late Wednesday night at the CRWC Natatorium on the University of Houston campus with the East Carolina women's team in sixth-place.
Five-time defending champion SMU lead the team scoring after two events with 80 points, followed by Rice (64). In third place, the host Houston Cougars tallied 62 points followed by Tulane (58), Marshall (50), and East Carolina (34), respectively.
The Pirates began the night with a second-place finish in the 200-yard medley relay (1:42.91) finishing less than three-tenths of a second in front of Rice (1:43.15). The ladies were disqualified in the 800-yard free relay for an early take-off.
The ECU men's team is competing in the C-USA Men's Invitational along SMU, Hawaii and North Dakota . Hawaii leads the four-team invitational with 144 points, followed by North Dakota with 92 points. East Carolina (89) and SMU (87) round out the standings in third and fourth, respectively.
The ECU 800-yard free relay team of Thiago Cavalcanti, Andrew Christian, Jonathan Bailey and Hyatt Gaston established a new varsity record in the event (6:40.00) and also earned a NCAA 'B' cut time.
The men's one-meter diving competition was also held Wednesday. Pirate freshman Andrew Galvagni earned a fifth-place score while sophomore Tyler Dunsmore finished eighth.
The meet resumes Thursday morning with the preliminaries of the 500-yard freestyle, 200-yard IM, 50-yard freestyle. The women's 3-meter diving preliminaries will begin at 2 p.m. The finals for those events begin at 7 p.m. with the 400-yard medley relay also being swam.
