After one day of competition at the NCAA Division III Swimming and Diving Championships the Emory University women are leading the pack, while the Emory men currently sit in second place.

The Emory women’s team scored 135 points on Wednesday to take a solid lead over second-place Denison University (102 points) and third-place Williams College (81 points).  The Eagles’ men’s squad has scored 70.5 points, and trails only Kenyon College (173 points), while taking a 8.5 point lead over third-place Kalamazoo College.

During the first day of competition, the Emory women notched a total of six all-America certificates in individual events, in addition to two all-America honorable mentions.  The Emory men picked up a pair of all-America certificates and four honorable mentions during the opening championship session.  Both the men’s and women’s teams added an additional all-America relay finish as well.

The Emory women opened the meet with a pair of all-America honors in the 500-yard freestyle, as junior Liz Horvat claimed fourth place with a time of 4:52.45, while sophomore Anne Culpepper finished in fifth with a mark of 4:53.97. 

In the finals of the 200-yard individual medley, sophomore Jennifer Aronoff finished third to earn all-America honors with a school-record time of 2:04.08.  Meanwhile, junior April Whitley earned her first all-America honor as an Eagle, coming in fifth with a time of 2:04.40.

The Eagles also had a strong showing in the 50-yard freestyle, with senior Ruth Westby coming in second in the nation in the finals, following a program-record time of 22.72 seconds in the preliminaries, just a hundredth of a second shy of the Division III record.  Sophomore Claire Pavlak also earned all-America honors with a sixth-place finish, while senior Lillian Ciardelli and freshman Ann Wolber finished ninth and tenth, respectively, to earn all-America honorable mentions.

The Emory women wrapped up the first day with an all-American fourth-place finish in the 200-yard medley relay, as the Eagles’ team of Jackie Schneider, Whitley, Ciardelli and Pavlak touched the wall with a time of 1:44.71.

The Emory men scored the bulk of their first day points in the 200-yard individual medley, where senior Kevin Yamada finished sixth in the nation with a time of 1:51.57, and senior Tom DiMarco finished eighth, to earn all-America honors.  Earning all-America honorable mentions and scoring for Emory in the event were senior John Petroff (10^th), junior Matt Spooner (12^th) and freshman Peter O’Brien (13^th).

Also recording all-American finish during the first day was Emory’s men’s 200-yard medley relay team of Matt Spooner, Yamada, Petroff and Dustin Frissell, which finished seventh with a time of 1:31.94.

Earlier in the meet, Emory junior Mark Bernstein earned an all-America honorable mention with a 10^th-place finish in the 500-yard freestyle with a time of 4:30.93.

Action at the National Championship meet will resume with preliminaries tomorrow at 11:00 AM EST at the University of Minnesota Aquatic Center in Minneapolis, MN.