GRESHAM, Ore. – Lee Rivers (Jr., Renton, Wash.) placed in the championship finals of the men’s 100-yard backstroke and Seth Ruwitch placed in the finals of the men’s 100 breaststroke, highlighting the second day of action for the Linfield Wildcats at the 2011 Northwest Conference Championships at the Mt. Hood Community College pool.

Rivers clocked a season-best time of 56.55 seconds to earn eight place while Ruwitch placed sixth in a time of 1:00.73. The Linfield duo the first Linfield swimmers – male or female – to advance to this year’s championship finals.

Through 24 events, both the Linfield men’s and women’s squads occupy seventh place in the team standings heading into Sunday’s final set of events. Whitworth sits atop both leaderboards.

Linfield’s Marc Pereira also placed in the 100 backstroke, taking 14th place in a season-best time of 1:01.46.

On the women’s side, Rhiannon Ladwig (Sr., Boise, Idaho) was 16th overall in the 400 individual medley. In the 100 butterfly, Linfield’s Natalie Groat was 11th in 1:02.88, Catherine Nakamura (Sr., Mililani, Hawaii) was 13th in a season-best 1:03.14 and Katie Main (Sr., Mill Creek, Wash.) collected 14th place in 1:03.66, nearly three seconds faster than her previous best effort. Nakamura also earned 12th place in the 100 backstroke in 1:03.41, a two-second improvement over her previous best time.

Action continues Sunday starting with preliminaries at 10 a.m. and finals commencing at 5 p.m.