March 26, 2010

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Although the first day of the men's swimming and diving national championships had to be pushed back by one day, the Missouri divers used that time to their advantage and took day one by storm with two top 16 performances and a broken school record on the 1-meter springboard by Greg DeStephen.

DeStephen finished tenth to earn his first All-American honor since his sophomore year, while Dante Jones finished 14th to earn ten points for the Tigers on Friday, putting the team in a tie for 23rd place overall with Louisville heading into Saturday's events.

DeStephen finished just a few spots off of making the "A" final group pairing, but after scoring 358.10 points in the preliminaries, exploded for 394.55 points in the finals, besting Jones' old school-record mark of 372.20 points. DeStephen now owns the school record in all three diving events at Mizzou.

Jones came close to matching his school-best performance in the springboard, finishing with 363.05 points in the finals, after making the cut with 346.60 points in the preliminaries.

The Tigers will be back in action tomorrow as Jan Konarzewski will take part in the 100 back, while DeStephen and Jones will compete in the 3-meter springboard. The events will begin at Noon EST.