Smal Qualifies For U SPORTS Championships

(HALIFAX, NS) On the first day of Dalhousie's 2018 Kemp-Fry Invitational Swim Meet, ten swimmers met U SPORTS championship qualifying times, including UNB's Leah Smal (Fredericton, NB).

Smal punched her ticket to the U SPORTS championships, posting a time of 29.15 seconds in the preliminaries for the women's 50-metre backstroke.

"I am happy with my swim, and am excited to be going to U SPORTS again," said Smal. "The women's team really stepped up tonight, and we saw a lot of great performances. I can't wait to see what the rest of the weekend holds."

"Leah had a great swim tonight. It set the tone for the team for the session," said Reds head coach Robin Ferdinand. "It's nice for her to make the standard in her first event of the meet so she can focus on swimming fast for the rest of the weekend."

Noah Horwood (Fredericton, NB) was fastest in the men's 50-metre breaststroke preliminaries.

His time of 29.08 seconds was just six-one-hundredths of a second off the U SPORTS qualifying standard.

"The team as a whole had a great night," said Ferdinand.

The evening session featured four finals, with the host Tigers claiming victory in two of the four

Day two of the Kemp-Fry Invitational starts Saturday morning at 10:00am with the preliminaries followed by finals at 5:00pm.

RECAP BY: Andy Campbell/UNB Athletics with files from Dal Athletics

PHOTOS BY: Carter Hutton/HFX Collective