Rockets Sit In Fourth After Day One of MAC Championships

Wednesday, February 21

Athens, Ohio

All Day

University of Toledo

Mid-American Conference Championships

Alida Ramden sets a personal best in her split of the 800 freestyle relay on first day of Mid-American Conference Championships.

Rockets Sit In Fourth After Day One of MAC Championships

2/21/2018 9:02:00 PM | Women's Swimming and Diving

MAC Final Results Day One

Athens, Ohio - Toledo's swimming and diving team sits in fourth place with 58 points after day one of the Mid-American Conference Championships hosted by Ohio University. The Rockets improved multiple season-best times in team relay events on day one of competition. Akron led the day with 80 points, followed by Buffalo and Eastern Michigan.

Today's events included the 200 medley relay and 800 freestyle relay.

Toledo finished fifth with a time of 1:41.31 in the 200 medley relay thanks to the team of Maureen O'Sullivan, Bec Welke, Eduarda Sales and Lisa Eriksson. The Rockets' time was a one-second improvement over their season-best time, and a half-second improvement over last year's championship time. Toledo's fifth-place finish was also an improvement over their seventh-place finish from last season's MAC championships.

The Rockets' greatest improvement came in the 800 freestyle relay where the team earned fourth place, a jump up from last year's sixth-place finish. The squad of Alida Ramden, Allison Dicke, Eriksson and Izzy Jones finished in 7:18.65, shaving almost seven seconds off of last year's time. Ramden led off for the Rockets and set a new personal-best time of 1:49.95. Her split places her as the 10th-fastest swimmer in the 800 freestyle relay on UT's top-ten list.

Head coach Jonas Persson had no complaints coming out of day one.

"I was very impressed with Welke's breaststroke split and Eriksson's freestyle split in the 200 medley relay," Persson said. "Ramden's lead off in the 800 free was a nice personal best, and seeing Dicke drop two seconds in her split was big for us. Jones also had a tremendous split of 1:47.70 to finish off the relay.

"I'm very pleased with our first day. We stepped up and raced really hard and our fourth-place ranking after the first day tells us how we performed. I'm very excited for tomorrow morning."

The Rockets return to action at 10:30 a.m. Thursday for prelims, with finals starting at 6:30 p.m. Tomorrow's events include the 500-yard freestyle relay, 200-yard IM, 50-yard freestyle, one-meter dive and 200-yard freestyle relay.