CMS Men's Swimming and Diving Sweeps Every Event to Defeat Redlands 202-29

CLAREMONT, Calif. - The ninth-ranked Claremont-Mudd-Scripps men's swimming and diving team won all 13 events to cruise to a 202-29 win over Redlands to remain undefeated in SCIAC competition this season on Saturday afternoon at Axelrood Pool.

The Stags not only won every event, they also came in 1-2-3 in 12 of the 13, with only the 50 free seeing the Bulldogs earn a second-place finish. CMS, which honored its senior class before the meet, now stands at 6-2 in duals this season, with the only two defeats coming to teams in transition to Division I (California Baptist and UC San Diego), and a perfect 6-0 in the SCIAC.

CMS opened up the meet with the top five finishing teams in the 400-yard medley relay, with the "A" team of first-year Anderson Breazeale, sophomore Walter Limm, junior Marco Conati and junior Andreas Roeseler finishing first in 3:27.30. 

The first individual event was the 1650, and CMS earned the top five finishers in that as well, with sophomore Michael Lee the first to the wall in 16:26.58, followed by senior Ben Culberson and sophomore Matthew Waddell. That was followed by the 200 free, with sophomore Nick Tan winning in 1:44.20, beating out senior Alex Moody and first-year Joe Zales in second and third. 

The 50 free saw Roeseler win comfortably, earning a margin of over a half-second in the down-and-back race over Raf Zasas of Redlands, the highest finisher of the day for the Bulldogs, by a margin of 21.26 to 21.85. Senior Henry Limm then won a close battle with first-year Ben Smith in the 400 IM, holding off Smith down the stretch for a 4:11.59 to 4:12.11 margin, with first-year Alec Vercruysse closing strong over the final 50 for a third-place finish in 4:12.26.

Waddell earned a win in the 200 fly in 1:55.08, edging Lee (1:55.70) by just over a half second. Conati led a 1-6 finish for CMS in the 100 free in 47.10, and Tan earned his second win of the day in the 200 back in 1:55.38, edging first-year Nick Zhang. Henry Limm also picked up his second win in the 200 breast, touching the wall in 2:09.07 to finish ahead of Vercruysse in second. 

The 500 free saw Zales earn a first-place finish in 4:49.14, pulling away over the second half of the race to edge Waddell (4:51.97). The final race of the day saw two CMS 800-relay teams battle each other tooth and nail the whole way, with the "A" team of Roeseler, senior Alex Moody, Culberson, and Breazeale winning by only .14 over the "B" team of senior Sam Willett, junior Will Grassle, Lee and junior Kyrellos Ibrahim (7:00.80 to 7:00.94) in a new Axelrood Pool-record time. 

Senior Kendall Hollimon, one of the other seniors honored before the meet, swept both boards in his final home SCIAC regular season event with 343.80 points in the three-meter. He will compete once more at home in SCIAC competition, though, as CMS will host the league diving championships on Feb. 15-16. 

CMS will return to action in two weeks for a tri-meet at Occidental, featuring Whittier, CMS and Oxy in the final SCIAC regular season event of the year on Feb. 1.