NORTON, Mass. — The Wheaton College (Mass.) men's swimming & diving team was defeated by visiting United States Coast Guard Academy, 171-109, this evening at Balfour Natatorium on the Wheaton campus in Norton, Mass.
The Lyons slip to 1-3, while the Bears improve to 2-0.
Coast Guard won 11 of 16 events and boasted five different competitors with two wins each.
Sophomore Gavin Cullinan (Cummings, Ga.) led Wheaton with wins in both backstroke events. He touched first in the 100-yard race with a time of 53.67, before scoring the winning mark in the 200-yard race with a clip of 1:57.83. Junior Anton Lopez (Oakland, Calif.) won the 50-yard freestyle in a sprint of 21.22 and placed third in the 100-yard freestyle and fifth in the 200-yard freestyle to give him 13 points on the night. Sophomore Brian Hixson (Scituate, Mass.) racked up 11 points with second-place efforts in the 200 and 100-yard freestyle races and a third-place showing in the 100-yard butterfly. Classmate Andrew Tran (Milton, Mass.) also reached double-digits with second-place finishes in the 100-yard breaststroke and the 200-yard backstroke in addition to a fourth-place finish in the 400-yard individual medley.
The Lyons took their only lead of the meet after winning the 200-yard medley relay to open the meet. Tran set the pace in the opening backstroke, followed by senior Ben Goho (Lincoln, R.I.) in the breaststroke, Cullinan in the butterfly and Lopez in the freestyle anchor to establish a winning time of 1:35.65. Wheaton closed the meet with a relay win as well with Cullinan, sophomore Will Larson (Iowa City, Iowa), junior Sean Hill (Ellsworth, Maine) and Hixson combining on a mark of 3:10.65 to win the 400-yard freestyle relay.
Junior Drew Harris (Murrysville, Pa.), first years John Kaleta (Morrow, Ohio), Blaise Minckler (Hilton Head Island, S.C.), Noah Reice (Wilmington, Del.) and junior Colin Twiss (Mahwah, N.J.) all won a pair of events for Coast Guard.
Harris won both diving events with a score of 149.70 on the one-meter board and a count of 164.70 on the three-meter board. Kaleta dominated both breaststroke events for the Bears with a time of 1:00.19 in the 100-yard race and a mark of 2:13.77 in the 200-yard event. Minckler turned in the top time in the 200-yard butterfly with a clip of 1:59.40, before winning the 400-yard individual medley with a time of 4:10.30.
Reice won the 100-yard freestyle (45.55) and the 100-yard butterfly (52.17) for Coast Guard, while Twiss flourished in the distance events with a time of 10:04.23 to capture the first individual event of the night followed by a victory in the 500-yard freestyle with a time of 4:50.46.
Wheaton travels to Springfield, Mass. to compete against Springfield College and Keene State College in a double-dual meet tomorrow at 12:00 p.m., while the Bears return to the pool tomorrow when they head to Bristol, R.I. to take on Roger Williams University at 1:00 p.m.
