School Records Highlight Friday Night at UAA Championships

(ATLANTA, Ga.) - The Carnegie Mellon University men's swimming and diving team continued competition at the University Athletic Association (UAA) Championships on Friday, February 13 at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. Three school records were set during the night as the Tartans sit in 5th place with one day left in the meet.

The Tartans started the night with a big swim in the 200-yard medley relay as the group of senior Josh Lucheon (Knoxville, Tenn./Knoxville Catholic), freshman Matthew Chu (Warren, N.J./Saint Peter's Prep), sophomore Sivan Mehta (Scarsdale, N.Y./Scarsdale) and freshman Kevin Steinhouse (St. Louis, Mo./John Burroughs School) broke their own school record set earlier in the year with a time of 1:31.00. The previous time of 1:31.02 broke the record that was set in 2001.

Walsh later put his name in the records book again with his career-best time of 49.34 in the 100-yard butterfly. The time breaks the record that was set in 2004 by Brian Jucha. Walsh finished fourth in the event and his time passes the invited time to the NCAA Championships from last year.

Junior Matthew Nielsen (Ashburn, Va./Briar Woods) won the B final of the 400-yard IM in a season-best time of 4:02.98, provisionally qualifying for the NCAA meet. In the 200-yard freestyle, junior Steven Geier (Glastonbury, Conn./Glastonbury) provisionally qualified for the national meet with a time of 1:40.70 in the preliminaries. He finished fourth in the championship finals with a time of 1:40.72.

Five Tartans swam in the B final of the 100-yard breaststroke with Chu winning the heat in a school recored time of 56.52. He and sophomore Brian Jay (Wayne, Pa./Conestoga) provisionally qualified for the NCAA meet as Jay touched in 57.18. Junior Philip Farr (Campbell, Calif./Bellarmine College) was fourth in the heat in 57.95 while junior Jay Jin (Canton, Mich./Canton) was sixth in 58.51 and junior Peter Podniesinski (Melville, N.Y./Half Hollow Hills East) was eighth in 59.19.

Freshman Michael DiBacco (Batavia, N.Y./Batavia) placed 10th in the 100-yard backstroke in a provisional qualifying time of 51.28 while Mehta touched 13th in 51.96.

The 800-yard freestyle relay closed the meet with a fourth-place showing in 6:48.66. Walsh, Geier, Nielsen and freshman Josh Taekman (Chapel Hill, N.C./Chapel Hill) finished the event in a qualifying time, meeting last year's invite time.

The final day of competition begins Saturday, February 14 at 10:00 a.m. with preliminaries while finals will start at 5:30 p.m.