INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. – The Cal men's swimming team kicked off the 2017 NCAA Championships with a school record as the Bears turned in a program-best time to finish fourth in the 800-yard freestyle relay on night one of the NCAA Championships hosted by IUPUI.

The team of Long Gutierrez, Seliskar, Michael Jensen and Ryan Murphy got four days of racing going Wednesday at The Natatorium and the Bears showed they'll be in the mix all week by taking the race right to the wire. Gutierrez got the first assignment and split 1:33.31 to leave the Bears sixth as he got out of the water.

Seliskar came next and the McLean, Va. native continued what has been an impressive 2016-17 season. He made up two spots for the Bears, bringing Cal into fourth with a 200-yard time of 1:31.58, the fastest leg of any Cal swimmer on the night.

With forward momentum in place, Jensen continued the trend for the Bears as he rolled to a time of 1:32.59 that was the second-fastest third leg for any team in the race. He left Cal in second as he exited the pool and Murphy finished off the race with a time of 1:32.08, closing out the race with a final time of 6:09.56 to score 30 team points for the Bears. NC State took the win with a NCAA and U.S. Open-record time of 6:06.53 while Texas finished second and Florida placed third.

Cal's final time eclipses the previous program best of 6:11.30 set by Gutierrez, Trent Williams, Seliskar and Jacob Pebley at the 2016 NCAA Championships.

"It was a really good relay for us. That's the fastest our program's ever been at 6:09 and we'll take that," Cal head coach David Durden said. "Long led us off in 33.3, which is a good start for him and then 31 out of Seli, 32 out of Jenny and 32.0 out of Murph on the end. That was really a solid swim for us on the first session. Now, the key is to wake up tomorrow morning and be good in our three individual events of the meet, the 500, the 200 IM and the 50 free and advance our guys into the finals in both those relays. We're excited about that, we're going to get some rest tonight and be up and ready to go tomorrow  morning."

The Bears return to The Natatorium at 10 a.m. (7 PT) on Thursday for the first full day of racing. Morning preliminaries will include the 200 free relay, 500 free, 200 IM, 50 free and 400 medley relay as well as 1-meter diving. Finals for each of those events will kick off at 6 p.m. local time (3 PT) tomorrow night.