ITHACA, N.Y. - The 800 free relay team of Gabriela Crother-Collado, Megan Beaulieu, Ola Nawrocki and Shannon Brown won by nearly five seconds and Colleen Whittaker captured the 200 butterfly on the third day of the four-day Liberty League Championship at the Kelsey Partridge Bird Natatorium on the campus of Ithaca College.

Rensselaer has 860 points through Friday night's action and trails only Ithaca (1088) and Rochester Institute of Technology (951) with Vassar College in fourth place (794). Action concludes on Saturday with the preliminaries at 10am (swimming) and 1pm (diving) and the finals at 6pm.

Whittaker, a freshman, opened the women's evening session with a victory in the 200 butterfly in an NCAA B-cut time of 2:05.59. She started with a 27.86 and then had 50 times of 31.53, 32.35 and 33.85 to outpace Lillian Lowenthal of Vassar (2:06.47). Erin Ingalls also swam in the A final in the 200 fly and finished seventh with a time of 2:17.61.

Beaulieu, a senior, had an individual runner-up in the 100 backstroke, touching the wall in 57.26 following a 27.50 start. She was defeated by less than a second by Jesse Ecklund of Vassar (56.28). Alyssa Cahill, a junior for the Engineers, was third with a time of 57.47.

Also third individually was Nawrocki, who registered a school record 1:05.89 in the 100 breaststroke. She was only .16 from second and less than a second from winning. Teammate Chloe Jepson was sixth (1:07.77).

The 800 free relay was the final event of the night and RPI posted a convincing victory by finishing with a 7:40.85. The squad was about five seconds in front of Ithaca's team (7:45.02) and seven ahead of Vassar's (7:47.34).

Rensselaer had three competitors in the B finals with Gwyneth Yuen and Megan Lewis in the 100 backstroke and Mariam Tharwat in the 100 breaststroke.