Ithaca, NY – Junior Gavin Lopata broke an individual school record and was part of a record-breaking relay team as the Clarkson University Swimming & Diving team closed out the Liberty League Championships held at the Athletics & Events Center Aquatics Pavilion on the campus of Ithaca College.

The Golden Knights' men finished in the middle of the pack, taking fifth place among nine teams with 877 points while the women took ninth out of 10 teams with 296 points.

Lopata, John Magnuson, Connor Maloney, and Benjamin Thibert shaved more than five seconds off their preliminary time in the 400 freestyle relay, breaking a standard set just last year by .27 seconds, taking third in 3:11.08. Lopata actually opened the day with a school record during the preliminaries, swimming the 100 freestyle in 46.92 seconds, .07 seconds faster than Al Catano's run of 46.99 in February 2014.

Lopata couldn't match or surpass his record-breaking prelim time, but he still placed fourth in the 100 freestyle during the finals with a time of 47.12. Teammate Benjamin Thibert was one spot behind in fifth in 47.44 seconds and Andrew Woythal finished in 21st with a time of 50.06. In the 200 backstroke, Kevin Atkinson and Michael Sarkisian finished back-to-back in 13th and 14th with times of 2:15.31 and 2:17.29, respectively, to pick up points for the Knights.

The 200 breaststroke saw three Clarkson swimmers in the 'B' finals and one in the 'C' finals, with some shuffling of the order from the prelims. Benjamin Vondrak was 15th in the prelims, but jumped up to 11th in the finals with a time of 2:13.60. Maloney followed in 12th in 2:14.16 and Garry Dorn came in 15th in 2:15.98 as Clarkson had three of the eight swimmers in the 'B' finals. One heat earlier, Nathan Perrotta came in 22nd in 2:25.20.

Though there were no preliminary heats due to the length of the race, Clarkson's men also had two swimmers participate in the 1650 freestyle. Freshman Angus McLean took 13th place in 17:51.33 and junior Conrad Koehler came in 15th in 18:30.21.

For the women, three swimmers made it to the individual finals on Saturday evening. Tiffany Catano came in 15th in the 200 backstroke in 2:19.79, taking more than a second off her prelim time. A more impressive performance came from Kayla Weckesser during the 200 breaststroke, as the senior took more than two and a half seconds off her prelim time to improve from 16th to 12th place in that event. Freshman Caitlin Newhard also finished in 23rd (2:47.52) in the 200 breaststroke for the Knights.

The Golden Knights had no women participate in the 1650 freestyle, and their top performer in the 100 freestyle was Emma Atkinson, who came in 35th place in 1:00.28. The foursome of Catano, Brooke Atkinson, Weckesser and Newhard combined to earn ninth-place points in the 400 freestyle relay, swimming the final event of the day in 3:52.97.