Cal State East Bay's first Pacific Collegiate Swimming Conference Championships under Head Coach Ben Loorz got underway on Feb. 16 with a pair of relay finals. Loorz will be reporting from the championship meet daily through Saturday. For more information and complete results, visit the PCSC Championships website here.

The opening evening of the 2011 Pacific Collegiate Swimming Conference Championships saw the prominent emergence of a small CSU East Bay team.

The opening event, the 200-yd. Medley Relay, was certainly a success, with the team of Tristan Donohue, Rachel Knowles, Lindsay Miller, and Jenni Perez teaming up to earn 9th place with a season best time of 1:53.65. This time was good enough to edge out close rivals Biola and Chapman University, and was good enough to earn 40 points for the Pioneers.

The real eye opener, however, came in the second event of the evening, the 800-yd. Freestyle Relay. Cal State East Bay emerged from the cellar in this grueling race – having placed 13th a year ago, the team of Murphy Wimer, Lindsay Miller, Jenni Perez, and Sara Bonino earned 5th place tonight. This is the highest East Bay relay finish in recent memory, and their stellar time of 7:57.71 shattered the old school record by nine full seconds!

Not to be overlooked, this race was also a “two-fer” in relay parlance, with lead-off swimmer Murphy Wimer swimming to an official 1:55.77 for her leg, also breaking a 26-year-old school record in the process.

Competition resumes tomorrow morning with the start of the preliminary heats of individual events at 9:30 A.M.

Complete results from Wednesday's finals are available here.