HAMPTON, Va .— The St. Bonaventure swim and dive teams started the Atlantic 10 Championship meet on a high note, collecting one medal and setting two new program top marks Wednesday night in the first day of competition. 
 
Ben O'Neill earned his first-ever medal at the championship meet on Wednesday evening in the 1-meter dive. After finishing seventh in the preliminary round with a score of 265.10, he tallied a score of 319.65 in the final round to earn his silver medal. 
 
Ben Giera finished fourth for the Bonnies, earning 15 points with a finals score of 310.85 (following a prelim mark of 288.0) and just missing a podium spot by one point behind La Salle's Sammy Henninger. Andrew Bell of UMass claimed gold after a prelim score of 286.85 and a final tally of 381.75.
 
Both the men's and women's 800-freestyle relay teams broke program records set in 2014. 
 
The men's squad, made up of Tanner Falls (1:36.89), Alexander Behr (1:35.55), Maxwell Murray (1:37.11), and Denton Smith (1:38.80) combined for a time of 6:28.35 to best the previous Bona's record by more than a second (Pilyugin, Shchukin, Danner, Martin - 6:29.80). 
 
Anna Bojana Forjan (1:50.28), Kathryn Beyer (1:50.73), Ellie Kraus (1:52.97), and Nele Vetter (1:49.72) went 7:23.70 for another school record. They took down the record of 7:25.32 set by Tanja Kirmse, Jeanette Dietrich, Rachel Bull, and Shannon Haberman at the 2014 A-10 Championship meet.

After one day of action, the men's team stands third with 90 points, behind George Washington (111) and UMass (91) while the women's squad is in sixth with 48 points. 
 
The team continues competition Thursday with prelims starting at 10 a.m. for the women's 500 Free Prelims, men's 500 Free Prelims, women's 200 IM Prelims, men's 200 IM Prelims, women's 50 Free Prelims, men's 50 Free Prelims. Finals are set for 6:30 p.m.
 
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