CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — The Wheaton College (Mass.) men's swimming & diving team's 800-yard relay broke the school record to place third on the first day of the New England Women's & Men's Athletic Conference Swimming & Diving Championship hosted by Massachusetts Institute of Technology at Zesiger Sports and Fitness Center Pool in Cambridge, Mass.

The Lyons are currently sixth with 52 points, while Springfield College is the leader following the first day with 105 points.

Senior Gavin Cullinan (Cumming, Ga.), first year Marcus Tran (Milton, Mass.), junior Kevin Rice (Vienna, Va.) and senior Brian Hixson (Scituate, Mass.) posted a time of 6:47.97 to eclipse the former Wheaton standard in the event by nearly a second. Cullinan and Hixson combined with Sean Hill '25 and William Garneau '23 to establish the former mark of 6:48.84 at the 2023 NEWMAC Championship on February 16. 

MIT's quartet of first year Evan Wong (Honolulu, Hawaii) joined sophomores Gidean Karp (The Woodlands, Texas), Grant Hu (Allen, Texas) and Nathan Kim (La Crescenta, Calif.) to combine on a winning time of 6:37.78.

The Lyons also received points from their second relay unit of first years Abel Haller (Needham, Mass.) and Leo Bailon Garcia (Guatemala City, Guatemala), junior Andrew Gust (North Andover, Mass.) and first year Nate Contreras (Coalville, Utah) with a time of 7:12.41 to finish 15th for Wheaton.

The Lyons return to the pool tomorrow for the preliminaries in Cambridge at 10:00 a.m.