Kentucky Wraps Up First Day of NCAA Championships
ATLANTA – Kentucky’s men’s swimming and diving team opened up its first day of competition at the 2016 NCAA Swimming and Diving Championships, with three Wildcats competing in the prelims of Thursday’s schedule.
Kentucky’s first athlete to compete was Kyle Higgins, a two-time NCAA qualifier for the Wildcats. Higgins swam in the 500 free, finishing fourth in his heat in 4:20.45 and 33rd overall. His mark is less than a tenth of a second off his personal-best time that he swam at this year’s Southeastern Conference Championships, which ranks fourth on UK’s all-time list.
On the 1-meter springboard, Seb Masterton came close to earning a second set of dives, but ultimately slipped out of the top 16 spots toward the end of the competition. The freshman finished 21st overall with 323.95 points, the fourth-highest point total that he had accrued on the 1-meter springboard during his rookie campaign. Levi Lindsey also dove in the prelims, finishing 47th with 244.65 points.
The Wildcats will resume competition tomorrow with prelims beginning at 10 a.m. ET. Higgins will swim the 100 fly while George Greenhalgh will have his opening swim in the 100 fly. Following the swimming prelims, Lindsey and Masterton will compete in the prelims of the 3-meter dive. The finals session for all events contested in the prelims will begin at 6 p.m. ET.
?ESPN3.com will live stream the finals sessions of the NCAA Championships on Friday and Saturday. Additionally, both the morning sessions on Friday and Saturday, will be streamed live on NCAA.com. Live results are available here. ?
For the latest on the Kentucky swimming and diving program, follow @UKSwimDive on Twitter, on Facebook at Facebook.com/UKSwimDive, and on the web at ukathletics.com.
