COLLEGE STATION / AUSTIN, Texas - The Arizona State swimming and diving squads finished the first day of competition at the Art Adamson and Texas Invitationals with diver Mara Aiacoboae earning the lone Sun Devil victory of day one.
After finishing seventh in the preliminary women's 3-meter diving event, the sophomore scored a 345.00 in the finals to finish first by nearly eight points. Thirty-six female divers competed in the preliminaries for the only eight spots in the finals.
On the men's side, sixteen competed in the preliminary 1-meter diving event and all three Sun Devils -- senior Hunter Atha and sophomores David Hoffer and Heikki Makikallio -- made the final eight-man event. Hoffer would finish in fifth place with a score of 335.80 while Atha and Makikallio finished in seventh and eighth respectively.
On the swimming side, the men and women competed in six events with two being relays. The preliminary events were all long-course events while the finals were short.
The men's 200-freestyle relay arguably had one of the better days for ASU, as the group of Patrick Park, Tadas Duskinas, Thomaz Martins and Barkley Perry finished in third place of the 20 relay teams. The group finished with a time of 1:19.84 and were just .28 seconds out of second and .43 out of first.
In the men's 500-freestyle, Perry missed out on qualifying for the championship final -- earning 13th place in the prelims. However, his time in the short-course consolation round (4:24.50) -- which he won in the race of eight -- would have been good enough for fourth place in the championship final.
Park and Duskinas went on to get the three-four spots in the men's 50-yard freestyle championship meet, as they qualified earlier in the day with the first- and third-fastest prelim times. Park turned in a time of 20.18 -- .17 off the first place time -- while Duskinas touched at 20.20.
For the women, junior Katarina Simonovic qualified in the top eight of 71 swimmers in the women's 500-yard freestyle. She finished in eighth in the women's championship finals with a time of 4:50.11.
Day two for the swimmers will start at 9:30 a.m. CT again with preliminaries from College Station, while the divers begin at 10:30 a.m. CT with their preliminary events.
You can follow along from College Station here, while following the diving squad here.