Day One Results

FAIRFAX, Va. - The Shippensburg men's swimming 200-freestyle relay team of senior Gabe Oropollo, sophomore Tim Smullen, senior John Miller and Nate Ryan narrowly missed an 18-year-old school record on Friday night with a second-place time of 1:23.81 during Day One of competition from the 2008 Patriot Invitational.

Ryan swam the final 50 yards in 20.43 seconds for the fastest of the four SU laps as the Raiders came just 0.43 seconds short of Division I UMBC for first-place. The previous mark is believed to be 1:23.10, set on March 8, 1990 by Brady Stauffer, Dave Craven, Rich Adams and Steve Meissner.

"We swam absolutely phenomenal today," said coach Tim Verge. "Hopefully we can keep this up over the weekend, because we had an awesome first day of competition in both the morning and the evening swims."

Individually, Ryan continued his spectacular first day of competition with a personal-best time of 21.13 seconds in the 50-yard freestyle that earned fourth place. Ryan was just 0.09 seconds out of first place and earned an NCAA 'B' cut time for his efforts.

Smullen finished eighth in the 50-free with a time of 21.76 after qualifying with a time a personal-best time of 21.47 seconds.

Sophomore Josh Nyce shattered his personal-best time in the 200-yard IM with a swim of 1:55.96 that earned him the victory in the consolation final and an NCAA 'B' cut time.

Junior Shane Wolter won the consolation final in the 500-yard freestyle with a new personal-best time of 4:37.42 that was more than a second faster than his previous-best effort.

The 400-yard medley relay team of Oropollo, Miller, freshman Joe Keefe and senior Brian Taylor earned 22 points for the team with an eighth-place finish in 3:33.98. 

The men are in third place after the first day of swimming with 132 points. Competition continues on Saturday and Sunday from the Jim McKay Natatorium on the campus of George Mason University.