CMS Men's Swim and Dive Battles Division I CBU to Final Event in Narrow Defeat

RIVERSIDE, Calif. – Steven Tran took first place in both the 300-yard IM and the 300-yard breaststroke as the Claremont-Mudd-Scripps men's swimming and diving team had a close 129-113 defeat to Division I California Baptist at the Lancers' annual distance meet on Friday afternoon at the Lancer Aquatics Center.

The annual meet features extended lengths for several races, including 300-yard butterfly, breaststroke, backstroke, and IM events, and 500-yard medley and freestyle relays. The freestyle events included the standard yardages of 50, 100, 200, 500 and 1650.

CMS had five individual wins on the day, including the two from Tran, who won the 300 IM in 3:00.58, followed by Frank Applebaum in 3:03.59. Tran later added a dominant win by over seven seconds in the 300-yard breaststroke, finishing in 3:16.62.

Applebaum, the defending Division III national champion in the 200 fly, turned around after finishing second to Tran in the IM and won the 300 fly in 2:59.54, a margin of almost five seconds. Lucas Lang earned a win of 7.42 seconds in the 500 free in 4:47.02, while Nick Tekieli earned first place in the 50 free for the Stags in a time of 21.10 followed by Dylan Krueger in second place with a 21.62. 

In addition to the individual winners, Anderson Breazeale had a tight runner-up finish in the 300 back that came down to the final touch to the wall, as Remi Fabiani of California Baptist edged him out by eight-hundredths of a second (3:00.03 to 3:00.11). Lang was a close second in the 1650 free in 16:01.43, Theo Johnson was second in the 100 free in 48.25, and Cyrus Gaylord took second in the three-meter dive with 281.78 points.

The meet wasn't decided until the last event (the 500 free relay), but the Lancers were able to take first and third to get the 14 points they needed to clinch, taking first place over the Stags team of Chris Ranlett, Tekieli, Johnson and Henrik Barck by just a quarter of a second (4:05.12 to 4:05.37). 

CMS will be back in action tomorrow when it hosts Whittier in a SCIAC dual meet, with diving taking place at 10:30 a.m. and swimming getting underway at 12 noon.