ERIE, Pa. – The Penn State Behrend men's swimming and diving team is in first place out of five teams after day two of the 2017 Allegheny Mountain Collegiate Conference (AMCC) Championships held in the Junker Pool on Thursday.
The Lions have accumulated 290 points through 14 events to hold a significant lead over second-place Alfred State with 157. Pitt-Bradford sits in third with a team total of 151. Over the first two days, Behrend broke nine records, with Mark Patterson (North Huntingdon, PA/Norwin) having a hand in all of them.
Patterson won the 500 freestyle, shattering multiple records with a time of 4:40.49. He set the team and pool records, the AMCC meet and open record in a time that was 10 seconds faster than in the preliminaries. Nick Roth (Pittsburgh, PA/Baldwin) and Ryan Siggins (Erie, PA/Iroquois) went 2-3 in the 500 freestyle for the sweep. Roth clocked in at 4:50.32 and Siggins was three seconds behind in 4:53.27.
Nick Kost (Ashburn, VA/Stone Bridge) beat his winning time last year in the 200 IM for his third straight title in this event. The senior touched first in 1:54.85 and was six seconds ahead of second place Lucas Cerchiaro from Pitt-Bradford. Ryan Elsey (Hermitage, PA/Hickory) came in third in the 200 IM (2:01.77) and Nathan Wagner (Ypsilanti, MI/Lincoln) was fifth (2:05.41).
The 200 freestyle relay of Quinn Fischer (Fairview, PA/Cathedral Prep), Roth, Siggins and Patterson with a time of 1:26.87. Patterson was the anchor leg with a speedy time of 21.05, just two hundredths of a second shy of the team record.
Fischer, who took the top seed for the men's 50 free with a personal best of 22.02, came in second in the finals with a time of 22.16.
After the 50 freestyle came the finals of the men's 3-meter diving. Senior Ethan Halmi (Erie, PA/McDowell), competing in his first conference championships, took second place with a score of 204.25.
The final relay of day two was the 400 medley. Patterson, Blair Carson (Wellsboro, PA/Wellsboro), Roth and Siggins broke the pool record en route to a first-place finish in 3:32.46.
In last night's event, the 800 freestyle relay consisting of Patterson, Kost, Siggins and Roth started off the championships with a first-place finish breaking four records with a time of 6:58.04. It set a new team, AMCC meet, AMCC open and pool record by nearly four seconds. Patterson opened the relay with a 200 freestyle time of 1:42.73.
The Lions return to action tomorrow for day three of the AMCC Championships. Prelims begin at 10 a.m. followed by finals at 6 p.m.
