800 Free Relay Team Shines; Stags In 11th After Day 3 Of NCAA Championships
SHENANDOAH, Texas – After the third day of competition on Friday at the NCAA Division III Swimming & Diving Championships at Conroe Natatorium, the Claremont-Mudd-Scripps men's swimming & diving team is in a tie for 11th place in the 44-school field. The Stags are four points from ninth place which is where St. Olaf stands with 85 points. Kenyon currently is in the overall lead with 355.5 points while Denison is in second with 308.
The final event of the evening on Friday was the 800-yard freestyle relay and in what was an extremely fast field, the Stags' relay team of senior Blake Weber, sophomore Cameron Whiting, senior Devin Bowers and sophomore Marc Blumberg finished in 10th place with a school record time of 6:41.24. For their efforts with the 10th place finish, the swimmers were chosen as honorable mention All-Americans. Johns Hopkins won the event with an NCAA-record setting time of 6:29.27.
In the 200-yard butterfly preliminary, Blumberg set a CMS record with a time of 1:49.25 which placed him in 11th place. He would then go on to earn honorable mention All-America status by placing in 15th in the finals with a time of 1:50.50.
Senior Brad Perfect swam in the 100-yard breaststroke preliminaries and placed in 25th with a time of 57:39, almost two seconds off the school record pace of 55.92 set in 1997.
Over the first three days of the Championships, seven Stags have swam their way to an honorable mention All-America selection while five Stags have become All-Americans. To be selected as an All-American, an athlete has to finish in the top-8 of his event and to be selected as honorable mention All-America, an athlete has to finish in the top-16.
Saturday's events include the 100-yard freestyle, 200-yard backstroke, 200-yard breaststroke, 3-meter diving and the 400-yard freestyle relay.
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