Four individual swimmers and one men's relay team punched their tickets into Saturday's evening session "A" cut finals of the SUNYAC Swimming and Diving Championships at Erie Community College in Buffalo during the morning session.

Senior Laurissa Coombs (Port Jefferson, N.Y. / Ward Melville) swam the women's 200-yard backstroke in 2:14.63 to place eighth in preliminaries.

Sophomore Tyler Zapisek (Syracuse, N.Y. / West Genesee) also placed eighth in prelims, but in the men's 100-yard freestyle.

Senior Richie Zimmerman (Victor, N.Y. / Victor) put himself in good position for a top finish by placing with the second best overall time in the men's 200-yard breast stroke with a mark of 2:08.40.

Junior Victoria Blakeslee (Gloversville, N.Y. / Gloversville) will also compete in the women's 1,650 freestyle after placing sixth with time of 18:44.39.

The men's 400-yard free relay team of junior Dan Costa (Spencerport, N.Y. / Spencerport), freshman Ricky Blackburn (Cicero, N.Y. / Cicero-North Syracuse), Zimmerman and Zapisek clocked in at 3:16.30 for fifth place to also qualify for the "A" cut.

UPDATE

In the evening finals session, the SUNY Potsdam swimming team came through with a bunch of top four spots in the championship.

Zapisek placed fourth in the 100 freestyle (46.97), Zimmerman was fourth in the 200 breast stroke (2:07.59) and the men's 400-yard free relay team also placed fourth with a time of 3:11.98.

The men's relay team produced a time that was more than four seconds faster than its preliminary time.

Coombs just finished inside the top 8 of the "A" cut in the women's 200-yard back stroke with a time of 2:14.39, lowering her prelims time of 2:14.63.

The women's 400-yard free relay team also set a program record with a time of 3:46.35. Stephanie Havens, Jennifer Yeager, Coombs and Blakeslee made up the team.