Women's Swimming | Feb 14 | Swimming Captures Two Medals on Day 2 at NEC Champs EAST MEADOW, N.Y. -- The LIU Brooklyn women's swimming team won two medals on Thursday night at the 2019 Northeast Conference Swimming and Diving Championships, at the Nassau County Aquatic Center and moved into fourth place overall with two days remaining. Four event finals were on tap on Thursday night, the 500 freestyle, 200 individual medley, 50 freestyle and the 200 freestyle relay, and with 88 points on the day, the Blackbirds finished day two with 150 team points, which is 37 points out of third place after Thursday's events. The defending champions, Bryant lead with 328 points. The individual highlight of the night came in the 50 freestyle, as senior Briana Vega, the 2017 champion, finished in second place in the final, at 23:29, just 0.05 off of Jillian Rice's (Bryant) winning time. Fellow senior Nathalie Meyers was 16th in 24.39, to squeeze onto the board as the last scorer in the event. Sophomore Amanda Peren earned her first individual medal of the championships with a third place finish in the 200 individual medley a school record time of 2:02.82. Classmate Jeanne Touchette-McGowan (2:07.88) and Mads Carrigan (2:08.38) scored points for the Blackbirds as the 10th and 11th place finishers. In the 500 freestyle, freshman Amanda San Juan (5:05.78) and junior Noemie Lacroix-Moreau (5:06.93) scored for LIU, coming in 10th and 11th, respectively. Then to close out the night, the Blackbirds slotted fifth in the 200 freestyle relay in a season-best 1:35.97, with a foursome of Lydia Amon, Jodi Hawki, Nathalie Meyers and Vega, in that order. In the morning preliminaries, Vega broke her only school record in the 50 freestyle, coming at 23.16, which is .007 faster than her runner up time from last year's finals. Amon (24.52) and Hawki (24.59) also swam their personal best times in the qualification round. Three Blackbirds also qualified for the 200 individual medley finals and the 500 freestyle finals. In the 200 IM, besides Peren (2:04.52), Touchette-McGowan (2:07.98) and Carrigan (2:08.38) all qualified for the night session. In the 500 free, two freshmen, San Juan (5:06.61) and Macie Madden (5:14.56) moved on, along with Lacroix-Moreau (5:08.90). The four-day meet continues Friday and Saturday, Feb. 15-16, starting each morning at 10:00 a.m. with preliminaries. The finals each day will be held during the night session, beginning at 6:00 p.m. "Today we had multiple qualifiers for the finals at night in every event," said Head Coach Matt Donovan. "We are starting to show our depth as a program, something we were never able to achieve in years before. Tomorrow's going to be a big day for us." With seven events on the schedule for Friday, the Blackbirds have seeded swimmers in the 400 individual medley (Jeanne Touchette-McGowan, Kyleigh Barao), 100 butterfly (Noemie Lacroix-Moreau), 200 freestyle (Amanda San Juan), 100 breaststroke (Mads Carrigan, Briana Vega), 100 backstroke (Amanda Peren) and the 400 medley relay to close out the night. FOLLOW LIVE Get more info about the event (including tickets) on the NEC Championship site: 2019 Women's Swimming & Diving NEC Championship Tournament Central Also, all four days of the 2019 Northeast Conference Swimming & Diving Championships will air live on NECFrontRow.