Swim & Dive Eighth After Day One At Rutgers

The Central Connecticut swimming and diving team completed day one of the Frank Elm Invitational hosted by Rutgers University on Friday. The highest placing swimmer for the Blue Devils was sophomore Christine Rasile who touched the wall 12th in the 50 yard freestyle with a time of 24.04. NEC Diver of the Week, Kaitlyn Beaver led CCSU on the diving board with a 10th place finish from the 3-meter board. She scored 200.45 points in her six dive attempts.

The Blue Devils' relay teams provided the most success for CCSU in day one of competition. CCSU saw both relay teams finish in the top-ten on the day and the 400 yard medley relay team set a new CCSU team record in the process.

Senior Helene Neuhaus, sophomores Sabree Thomas and Christine Rasile and freshman Maddy Garber swam to a time of 3:48.45 as a team, a new school record, in the 400 yard medley relay and recorded a fifth place finish out of 25 teams. The fifth place finish was the best for the Blue Devils on day one of the Frank Elm Invitational and earned CCSU 50 points.

The 200 yard freestyle relay team finished eighth out of 23 teams and earned 44 points for the Blue Devils. The team was comprised of senior Neuhaus, sophomore Rasile and freshmen Lauren Czulewicz and Lauren Rasile. They finished the race with a time of 1:36.29.

The Blue Devils had two swimmers finish in scoring position in the 200 IM. Freshman Maddy Garber led CCSU in the event with a 20th place finish with a time of 2:08.42. Her effort accounted for five Blue Devils points. Sophomore Lisa Ward recorded a 24th place finish with a time of 2:09.52 and added another point to the team's total.

In the 500 free, senior Karen Novak placed 21st to lead the way for the Blue Devils with a time of 5:06.10. Her finish helped tack on four points to the Blue Devils total.

The Blue Devils finished the first day of competition with 204.5 points, good for eighth place out of 10 teams. Northeastern currently is in first place at invitational with 506 points followed by Navy (434), Rutgers (329), Wagner (310) and LIU Post (296) to round out the top-five.

The Blue Devils will resume competition tomorrow morning at 10 a.m. for the swimming preliminary rounds of the events scheduled for day two. The finals of the 1-meter diving event are set to begin at 12 p.m. The finals of the swimming events are scheduled to begin at 6 p.m. Fans can view the results live here.

Event Schedule for Day 2 of the Frank Elm Invitational:
12:00 PM – 1-Meter Diving Finals
6:00 PM – 200 Medley Relay Finals
               400 IM Finals
               100 Fly Finals
               200 Free Finals
               100 Breast Finals
               100 Back Finals
               800 Free Relay Finals