Men's Swimming and Diving | 1/21/2017 7:28:00 PM

La Crosse, Wis. - The University of Wisconsin-La Crosse men's swimming & diving team earned a 147-62 dual victory over UW-Oshkosh Saturday afternoon at the Richard L. Pein Natatorium.  The Eagles improve to 2-2 in duals this season, including 1-1 in the Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (WIAC).

UWL's 200-yard freestyle relay of Jackson Uselman, Nicholas Brehmer, Jacob Burchfield and Ryan Jessen took first with a facility record time of 1:23.51.  The relay broke the record of 1:23.93 set by Matthew Diehl, Christopher Boyle, Adam Carlson and Anthony Wolff in 2007.

"We brook a tough pool record tonight," said UWL head coach Charlie King.  "At the same time, we had amazing swimming and diving by just about everyone.  We are tired and beat up, but we are racing and competing with a powerful purpose right now."

"We decided to go for the pool record during our second practice the day before the meet," said Burchfield.  "We were less than two seconds off the record in practice so we knew we could get it in a meet.  The whole team knew we were going to break the record, which helped our confidence a lot. I knew when I saw Jackson's lead off split we were not only going to get it, but we were going to crush it, which we did."

"The confidence and belief shown by everyone on the relay in breaking that record will be tremendously helpful in preparing us for this final stretch heading into conference," said Jessen.

"As a senior it was just fun setting a record in my last 200 relay I'll ever swim in the pool," said Brehmer. "And we should just use this excitement to keep getting better for conference."

"Being at our home pool and looking up at those records everyday, it makes the record much more meaningful and to be able to get our names on the board and be a part of UWL history makes it really special," said Uselman.  "We need to stay focused moving forward and it was a great experience for our relay, but it's time to use that as a confidence builder and start focusing on conference moving forward."

Burchfield added the only reason the relay was set were the coaches.  "It was their idea and it hadn't even crossed our minds.  Coach (Charlie) King, Devon (Meeks), and Barry (Schockmel) all knew we could do it and because of them we were given the opportunity to do something great."

The Eagles also won the 200-yard medley relay (1:43.22) Saturday with Jessen, Uselman, Burchfield and Quinton Maydaniuk.

Along with the two relay titles Saturday, UWL won 11 individual titles.  Jack Zocher won three events, sweeping the one-meter (271.85 points) and three-meter (261.35) diving competition and winning the 50-yard freestyle (22.41).

Maydaniuk captured the 100-yard breaststroke (1:01.94) and 200-yard freestyle (1:56.14) while Trevor Anderson won the 200-yard I.M. (2:09.25) and 1,000-yard freestyle (10:41.83).

Jessen won the 100-yard freestyle (49.46), Burchfield the 500-yard freestyle (5:00.96), Uselman the 100-yard butterfly (54.01) and Seth Gutzmer the 100-yard backstroke (59.20).

"We had a lot of people step up tonight achieving season and personal bests," said King.  "Augustus was all heart in the 1,000 freestyle. He went out a little fast, but fought the whole way home. He became a different swimmer in that race. Merek hit some new best marks a couple of times to validate a new level of swimming for him."

Other top finishes:
One-Meter Diving: Elijah Heggernes - 2nd (216.40 points)
Three-Meter Diving: Elijah Heggernes - 2nd (183.25 points)
50-Yard Freestyle: Austin Kandt - 2nd (22.99)
200-Yard Freestyle: Jacob Martin - 3rd (1:58.64)
1,000-Yard Freestyle: Augustus Brenzel - 3rd (11:22.25)

UWL returns to action Saturday, January 28 hosting UW-Stevens Point at 1 p.m.