From Washington University Athletics
The Washington University in St. Louis men's swimming & diving team opened the 2015-16 season by defeating NCAA Division I Saint Louis University in a dual meet Friday evening at Millstone Pool.
The WashU men won seven events en route to a 125-114 victory over the Billikens. It marked the first time the WashU men have defeated SLU since the 2009-10 season.
Freshman Kevin Van Cleave and sophomore Ryan Nathenson each won a pair of individual events for the Bears. In one of the loudest races of the meet, Van Cleave erased more than a two-second differential on the freestyle leg to overtake SLU's Austin Nguyenphu for first in the 200 individual medley. Van Cleave out-touched Nguyenphu to win the race by six-hundredths of a second with a time of 1:56.72. Later in the meet, Van Cleave held off Nguyenphu for first in the 100 backstroke with a time of 53.68.
Sophomore Ross Brown won the men's 50 free by nearly four-tenths of a second with a time of 21.94. In the final event of the meet, Brown swam a furious leg to anchor the WashU men to a first-place finish in the 200-free relay. He joined seniors Kaisen Yao and Reed Dalton, and sophomore TJ Dawson in clocking a time of 1:25.76 to win by more than 0.5 of a second. Yao, junior Michael Lagieski, Dalton and juniorJustin Morrell also won the 200-medley relay by more than two seconds with a time of 1:34.75.