Records Fall On Day One Of SCIAC Championships
The Stags set three CMS records and one SCIAC record en route to winning all six events contested on the first day of the SCIAC Swimming & Diving Championships on Sunday. After the first of three days of competition, CMS has 343 points with Redlands in second with 220.
James Stevick started the dominant CMS effort by easily winning the 1 meter diving competition with an NCAA qualifying score of 476.20. The evening swimming competition started with a SCIAC and CMS record turned in by the 200 Free Relay team of Alex Poltash, Devin Bowers, Patrick Shultz and Joe Hinton. The team swam 1:22.23, an NCAA qualifying time, to break the old record by 0.92 seconds as each swimmer broke 21.00 (a first in CMS and SCIAC history). In the 500 free, the Stags' Marc Blumberg, Conrad Shabb, Alex Mendoza and Cameron Whiting went 1-2-3-4 respectively as all four had NCAA 'B' qualifying times. Blumberg swam 4:34.75 to defend his 2012 title moving from fifth to first with a powerful last 100. Blake Weber blitzed the last 50 of the 200 indivdual medley to move from 0.81 behind to 0.82 in front with an NCAA 'A' qualifying time of 1:50.16. His time is second best in CMS history.
The freshman duo of Poltash and Hinton went 1-2 respectively in the 50 free with NCAA 'B' qualifying times of 20.53 and 20.65. CMS closed out the night with a CMS record of 3:21.56 in the 400 medley relay. The team of Blake Weber, Brad Perfect, Jordan Lieberman and Hinton closely trailed a very strong Redlands squad for the first two legs, but were over a second behind with 50 remaining. Hinton finished off the second best anchor in CMS history (44.70) by swimming down the Bulldog anchor and out-touching him for the win. Their NCAA 'B' qualifying time broke the old CMS record by 0.50 seconds and just missed the SCIAC meet record. Weber set the CMS record in the 100 backstroke with a 50.95 leading off the medley relay.
The second day of competition is Monday with finals in the 400 individual medley, 100 butterfly, 200 freestyle, 100 breaststroke, 100 backstroke, 3 meter diving and the 200 medley and 800 free relays.
