Medley Relay Team Sets League Record on Opening Day of SCIAC Swim Championships for Stags

LA MIRADA, Calif. - The CMS men's swimming and diving team's 200-yard medley relay team of Anderson Breazeale, Walter Limm, Marco Conati and Nick Tekieli set a new SCIAC record in 1:28.57 to highlight the first day of the SCIAC Swimming Championships at the Splash! La Mirada Aquatics Center on Wednesday evening.

CMS has opened up a good-sized lead over Pomona-Pitzer after the first four events, including two diving events from last weekend, currently standing with 272 points to 203 for the Sagehens. The Stags did have five student-athletes in the diving competition to help them build that advantage prior to the start of the swimming portion today. 

Breazeale and Conati were part of the previous 200-yard medley record-holding team for CMS in 2020, which finished in 1:28.91, but this year's foursome with Limm in the breaststroke and Tekieli in the freestyle was able to chop .34 off that record time on their way to the win and 44 points towards the CMS total. The victory margin was almost a full second over Pomona-Pitzer in second (1:29.30) and Cal Lutheran in third (1:29.50), who earned 38 and 36 points, respectively. 

CMS finished in second in the other relay held on Wednesday, the 800-yard freestyle, but Breazeale had a key performance to help the Stags finish as the runner-up. CMS had a final time of 6:40.34 to edge out Caltech (6:40.41) by just seven-hundredths of a second. Breazeale anchored the relay and jumped in the pool 2.31 seconds behind the Beavers, and still trailed by about 1.5 seconds with 50 yards to go, but was able to close the gap and pass his Caltech counterpart by less than a tenth of a second to give CMS a couple of bonus points.

The CMS B relay also added some points by winning its heat of the 800-yard freestyle by just over a second over the Sagehens (resulting in an eight-point swing to add to the Stag lead). Thayer Breazeale, Alec Vercruysse, Theo Johnson and Lucas Lang earned the 6:45.63 to give CMS 20 points, while the runner-up foursome from Pomona-Pitzer finished with 16. 

Day two of the SCIAC Championships will take place tomorrow, with prelims held at 9 a.m., and finals taking place at 5 p.m. The championship will wrap up on Saturday, as the Athenas and Stags will try to repeat as league champions after earning the 2020 title in the last SCIACs held.