MONTEREY PARK, Calif. -
Cyrus Gaylord won the one-meter dive and
Dean Ko took first in the 400 IM to highlight the performance of the Claremont-Mudd-Scripps men's swimming and diving team as it competed at the three-day Winter Collegiate Invite at East LA College, hosted by La Verne, from Friday-Sunday.
Lucas Lang was second in the 1650 free with a time of 15:46.71, earning an NCAA "B" cut, in his first time swimming the 1650 after winning the national title in it a year ago. He was also second in the 500 free with a time of 4:34.09, while
Adam VanLuvanee came in seventh with a 4:41.66.
CMS finished sixth (out of 16) as a team with 823 points, as Fresno Pacific (1611) and UC Santa Cruz (1327) were first and second. Chapman was just ahead of the Stags among SCIAC schools with an 835.
Gaylord won the one-meter dive in an extremely close battle with Reid Omillan of Chapman and Thomas Matheis of Pomona-Pitzer. Gaylord finished with 306.45 points, with Omillan second with 304.55 and Matheis third with 302.45 as the three divers were separated by only four points. Matheis took the three-meter dive, which Gaylord did not compete in, as
Logan Mansfield paced the Stags with a third-place finish.
Ko earned his title in the 400 IM with a time of 4:00.51, winning by a margin of 1.39 seconds over Max Pecile of Fresno Pacific and moving into seventh place on the all-time list at CMS.
Lucas Williams also qualified for the finals and came in seventh, before earning fourth in the 200 IM with a 1:53.51, one spot behind
Kenny Eckel, who came in third with a 1:52.65.
Sean Su and
Alex Davies qualified for the finals in the 200-yard freestyle, with Su swimming a 1:40.82 in prelims that put him just outside the top 10 in CMS history (Gary Simon ranks 10th with a 1:40.31).
Jeremy Tan also made his way into finals in the 100 back and came in seventh.
The 200-yard medley relay team of
Jeremy Tan,
Spencer Merodio,
Weston Crewe and
Dylan Krueger opened the meet with a close four-way race against Fresno Pacific, Pomona-Pitzer and Concordia. Fresno Pacific edged out in front for the win in 1:30.89, with Pomona-Pitzer (1:31.08), CMS (1:31.13) and Concordia (1:31.17) finishing within a tenth of a second of each other in second, third and fourth.
The Winter Collegiate Invite at ELAC essentially serves as a dry run for the SCIAC Championships, which will be held at the same venue, and following the same format of 9 a.m. prelims and 5 p.m. finals.
CMS will be back in action after Thanksgiving for its annual two-day meet with Pomona-Pitzer, which will be held on Dec. 6-7 at Pomona-Pitzer's Haldeman Pool.
