WORCESTER, Mass. — The Wheaton College (Mass.) men's swimming & diving team placed third in the 400-yard freestyle with a school-record time in the evening's last event to propel the squad into fifth place at the New England Women's & Men's Athletic Conference Championship hosted by Worcester Polytechnic Institute at the WPI Sports & Recreation Center in Worcester, Mass.
The Lyons finished with 601 points for their highest point total in the title meet since 2016-17. Babson College finished fourth with 704 points. Massachusetts Institute of Technology tallied 1334 points to capture their 16th consecutive conference crown, finishing ahead of United States Coast Guard Academy's total of 1079 points.
Wheaton entered the final relay ahead by 4.5 points, before Worcester Polytechnic Institute jumped ahead by 1.5 points following the consolation final of the event. The Lyons quartet of juniors Brian Hixson (Scituate, Mass.) and Gavin Cullinan (Cumming, Ga.) and seniors Sean Hill (Ellsworth, Maine) and Anton Lopez (Oakland, Calif.) shattered the school-mark in the 400-yard freestyle relay by 3.08 seconds with a time of 3:01.97 to finish third, while WPI finished sixth to allow Wheaton to reclaim the fifth spot by 4.5 points.
The Lyons made a statement to begin the evening with Hill placing fourth in the 1650-yard freestyle behind a time of 16:23.97, just ahead of sophomore Kevin Rice's (Vienna, Va.) effort of 16:24.88 to finish fifth. Within Hill's swim, he also broke Rice's school-record for the 1000-yard freestyle by 2.25 seconds with a time of 9:46.89. Junior Alex Minickiello (Swanzey, N.H.) placed 10th in the event with a mark of 17:11.39.
Hixson registered a time of 45.86 to finish fourth in the 100-yard freestyle final for Wheaton, while Lopez bettered his personal-record clip in the race by 0.71 seconds with a time of 45.33 to finish first in the consolation final and 11th overall in the event. Cullinan placed fifth in the 200-yard backstroke, breaking his personal-best by almost a second at 1:50.57, while sophomore Jadyn Arnold (Oakland, Maine) finished 16th with a personal-best mark of 1:57.08. Arnold also finished 19th in the 200-yard butterfly with a time of 2:02.93 and senior Colton LaBrecque (Vernon, Conn.) was 20th with a mark of 2:01.42.
Junior Andrew Tran (Milton, Mass.) finished ninth in the 200-yard breaststroke with a time of 2:09.16 for the Lyons and first year Aidan Saunders (Harpswell, Maine) finished 16th with a mark of 2:12.76. First year Koby Wulfmeyer (New Paltz, N.Y.) placed 18th in the race with a personal-record time of 2:13.95.
Wheaton racked up 20 top-10 finishes during the four-day meet, including three appearances on the medal stand. Lopez recorded a pair of third-place finishes in the 50-yard freestyle and 100-yard backstroke to go with the Lyons' third-place showing in the 400-yard freestyle relay to end the meet.
