March 24, 2006

TEMPE, Ariz. (www.thesundevils.com) -- Arizona State University men's swimming and diving is in 15th place after the second day of competition at the NCAA Men's Swimming and Diving Championships held in Atlanta, Ga. at the Georgia Tech Aquatic Center.

For the second day in a row, despite a strong effort senior diver Joona Puhakka finished second to Georgia's Chris Colwill, this time in the three-meter dive. During the preliminaries, Puhakka again led all divers tallying a score of 416.20. Puhakka went on to the finals and recorded a score of 4:13.05. Senior diver Brant Bingham also competed on the three-meter springboard recording a score of 254.30 to finish 30th in the event.

School record holder in the 400-yard IM, freshman Gal Nevo (Kibbutz Hammadia, Israel) finished seventh in the event recording a time of 3:48.35 scoring 12 points for the Sun Devils. Nevo touched the wall in 3:46.96 during the preliminaries. Also competing in the 400-yard IM for ASU was sophomore CJ Nuess (Medical Lake, Wash.) recording a time of 3:51.56. He finished 19th in the event for the Sun Devils. In the 200-yard freestyle, sophomore Lucas Azevedo (Belo Horizonte, Brazil) finished 31st for ASU clocking a personal-best time of 1:37.84. His time is also the fastest time recorded by an ASU swimmer in the event this season.

The NCAA Men's Swimming and Diving Championships continue Saturday at the Georgia Tech Aquatic Center. Saturday will be the final day of competition for the weekend. Azevedo, Nuess and Nevo will all compete in the 1,650-yard freestyle Saturday.

-- Sun Devil Swimming and Diving --