Lucas Lang Earns Runner-Up in 1650, Helps Stags to Eighth-Place Finish at NCAA Championships
INDIANPOLIS, Ind. – Lucas Lang earned a runner-up finish in the 1650-yard freestyle to help cap off an eighth-place finish for the Claremont-Mudd-Scripps men's swimming and diving team on the final day of the 2022 NCAA Division III Championships on Saturday at the IU Natatorium.
Lang trimmed over five seconds off his own CMS record by finishing in 15:17.24, less than four seconds off the winning time of Kellen Roddy of Johns Hopkins. The two swam neck and neck for almost the entire race, hitting the wall a half-second apart or less at almost every 50-yard split. Lang, in fact, had his last lead at 1300 yards by two-tenths of a second, 12:02.41 to 12:02.61, but Roddy was able to edge out in front over the final 350 yards to win in 15:13.37.
Nick Tekieli added his third program record to his resume this weekend, winning the consolation heat of the 200-yard backstroke in 1:45.05, which was 2.42 seconds faster than he swam in the morning prelims and was the fourth-fastest time of the meet. Tekieli earlier broke the CMS record in the 100 back (46.99) on his way to a third-place finish and first-team All-America honors, and also aet a new program standard in the 50 free by becoming the first swimmer ever at CMS to break 20 seconds (19.98). Anderson Breazeale also finished tied for 11th in the 200 back in 1:46.52, while Marco Conati earned a 14th place finish in the 100-yard freestyle, and moved into second place in CMS history with a time of 44.21, just .15 behind Alex Poltash's record set in 2015.
The Stags capped off the meet with a seventh-place finish in the 400-yard freestyle relay to earn first-team All-America honors, as Breazeale, Conati, Eric Workman and Tekieli finished in a new CMS record time of 2:58.88 (only the second Stag foursome to break three minutes). Tekieli finished off his stellar weekend with a 43.89 split as the anchor to help the Stags earn 24 points for the seventh-place finish.
CMS ended the meet with 230.5 points in eighth place overall, which was closer to fourth-place Williams (290) than it was to ninth-place WashU (158). Emory won the title with 427.5 points, with Johns Hopkins in second with 340, a half-point ahead of Denison in third with 339.5.
The four-day event for the Stags saw a national championship won by Frank Applebaum in NCAA record time in the 200-yard butterfly (1:44.01). Both CMS medley relays teams earned runner-up finishes in school record time, with Walter Limm joining Conati and Tekieli on both, and Breazeale (backstroke on 200 medley relay) and Applebaum (butterfly on 400 medley relay) contributing as well. Lang added a second-place honor in the 1650 on Saturday, to go with his consolation win in school record time in the 500. Tekieli's week saw him earn third place in the 100 back after coming in seeded 16th, while Applebaum and Conati both earned All-America honors in the 100 fly in fifth and seventh place, respectively.