CMS Men's Swimming and Diving Takes Lead After First Day of SCIACs

LOS ANGELES, Calif. – The Claremont-Mudd-Scripps men's swimming and diving team's 200-yard medley relay (Anderson Breazeale, Evan Deedy, Frank Applebaum, Dylan Krueger) took first place, and Breazeale set a SCIAC record with the opening leg of the 800-yard freestyle relay (1:37.29) to help the Stags finish second, as Claremont-Mudd-Scripps opened up a lead on the first day of the four-day 2024 SCIAC Swimming and Diving Championships at East Los Angeles College.

CMS also placed five athletes in the top nine in the 3-meter dive to build a big early advantage before the swimming events even got started on the first day of the four-day event. The two relays actually resulted in a dead head between CMA and Pomona-Pitzer, but CMS entered six scoring divers and had 68 points, while Pomona-Pitzer had only 20 from its three divers, giving the Stags a 168-120 lead over the Sagehens (with Chapman in second place with 129). 

The Stags swam a 1:28.94 to defend their 200-yard medley relay title, winning by .27 over Pomona-Pitzer to earn 40 points, while moving into third place in CMS history. Applebaum dominated the butterfly leg to stake CMS to a lead of .65 after the two teams were virtually tied at the midway point.

The CMS 800-yard freestyle relay team (Anderson Breazeale, Thayer Breazeale, Spencer Merodio, Lucas Lang) also shattered the CMS record with a 6.36.87, but came up just four-tenths of a second short in its bid to sweep the relay podiums on opening day as Pomona-Pitzer's team edged in front on the final stretch to finish in 6:36.45. The previous CMS record of 6:40.17 was set at the 2017 NCAA Division III Championships, while the Stags swam almost eight seconds faster than the 6:44.60 they had at the SCIAC Championships a year ago.

Anderson Breazeale, meanwhile, led off with 1:37.29 to take over a second off his personal best (1:38.88) and pass Matt Williams (1:38.35) for first in CMS history, as well as Tyler Harp of Redlands (1:37.51 in 201) for the fastest 200-yard free in league annals. The Stags passed the previous meet record of 6:37.13, and now holds every SCIAC freestyle record, including the 500 and the 1650 from Lang.

In the three-meter dive, the Stags entered six scoring divers to try to take advantage of its depth and build a lead heading into the swimming events. Cyrus Gaylord earned All-SCIAC honors with a third-place finish with a score of 518.90, behind Jake Randazzo and Reid Omilian of Chapman. Ethan Sattley came in fourth, Jack Griffith sixth, Bennet Matazzoni eighth and Ben Smith ninth, as the Stags had half of the top 10, while Pomona-Pitzer had just one of its three divers in the top 10.

The second day of the SCIAC Championships will get underway at 9 a.m. tomorrow with prelims for the 500-yard freestyle, the 50-yard freestyle and the 200-yard IM, before the men's one-meter dive takes place at 12 noon. The finals of the 500 free, 50 free and 200 IM will be in the evening at 5:30 p.m., along with the 200-yard freestyle relay.