Michael Lee
Michael Lee's win in the 500 free highlighted the CMS effort at the CBU Distance Meet

CMS Men's Swimming and Diving Drops Distance Meet to Division I CBU

RIVERSIDE, Calif. - The Claremont-Mudd-Scripps men's swimming and diving team returned to action after a five-week layoff and had some strong swims against California Baptist, in its first year of Division I competition, but finished on the short end of a 143-95 score on Friday afternoon in the annual distance meet between the programs.

With the loss, the Stags move to 4-2 on the season, with both defeats coming to programs which are in transition to Division I (UC San Diego being the other). The CBU distance meet wasn't conducted as a traditional dual, with 300-yard races in the IM, breaststroke, backstroke and butterfly, instead of the standard 100-yard and 200-yard competitions, while the freestyle and medley relays both covered 500 yards instead of the traditional 200-yard and 400-yard races. 

Sophomore Michael Lee had an individual win for CMS in the 500-yard freestyle, touching the wall in 4:44.82 to edge out California Baptist's Adityastha Wratsangka in 4:45.64, while junior Kyrellos Ibrahim was the third-place finisher in 4:46.07. Lee almost had two individual wins, but was edged out in the 200-yard freestyle by just .22, finishing in 1:45.27 to the winning time of 1:45.05 from Matthew Niculae of CBU. Senior Alex Moody came in third place in the 200 for the Stags, while first-year Anderson Breazeale was in fourth. 

Senior Ben Culberson nearly had another win for the Stags, but finished in second place in a furious race to the wall in the 1000-yard freestyle, coming up just .04 behind Dylan Sweikert of Cal Baptist (9:55.18 to 9:55.22). CMS also had the third and fourth place finishers in the race, as junior Abel Sapirstein came in third place, with sophomore Matthew Waddell behind him in fourth. 

Junior Andreas Roeseler had a close race in the 50 free, but ended up third in 21.50, a quarter-second behind the winning back of 21.25 from Jacob Leahy of CBU. Senior Henry Limm was second in the 300-yard backstroke in 3:20.78 and senior Kendall Hollimon was second in the one-meter dive. 

The meet concluded with the 500-yard freestyle relay, with first-year Nathan Luis, Roeseler, Lee and Breazeale battling close for much of the race before finishing second in 4:11.67.

CMS will be back in action tomorrow when it returns to SCIAC competition for a road dual meet against La Verne, starting with diving at 10 a.m.