Sweet Sets New Record, Lords Lead After Opening Day

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Washington & Lee University senior Alex Sweet captured the 50-yard freestyle title with a new Division III record time of 19.85, clipping the old record of 19.90 set by Denison University's Aaron Cole in 1999, and 28-time defending champion Kenyon College rode a pair of relay victories and depth to take a 91-point lead in the team race to highlight opening day activities Thursday inside Miami University's Corwin M. Nixon Aquatic Center at Oxford, Ohio.

Kenyon amassed 201 points, ahead of second-place Johns Hopkins University’s 110 points. The Lords’ national championship streak is the longest in any sport in NCAA Division I, II or III history. Denison University sits in third at 105 points, followed by Emory University in fourth with 75, and St. Olaf College in fifth with 68.

Sweet, the only swimmer to eclipse the 20-second barrier, bettered his morning preliminaries (19.99) with his record-setting time of 19.85 in the championship finals, nipping Kenyon’s Josh Mitchell (20.01) who finished second.

Mitchell also swam on both relays for the Lords, swimming the second leg of the 200-yard freestyle relay with a time of 19.42 that consisted of Blair Withington, Matthew Harris, Marc Christian, and Mitchell to a time of 1:20.70, as they edged Denison by 0.66 seconds.

The Lords capped the evening by winning the 400-yard medley relay, as Alexander Stoyel, Mitchell, Harris, and Christian combined for a 3:17.44, the nation’s fastest time. It marked Kenyon’s eighth straight win in the 200 freestyle relay and its eighth in the last nine years in the 400 medley relay.

Denison junior David Curtis won the 500-yard freestyle by over five seconds at 4:23.61, besting Kenyon senior Alexander Rantz in 4:28.93. St. Olaf junior Nelson Westby won the 200-yard individual medley for the second-consecutive championship meet, winning this year’s title with a time of 1:48.54. Kai Robinson of Amherst College won the one-meter diving event with 499.75 points, while University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh junior Jacob Chadderdon finished second with 465.90 points.

Action in the three-day event, hosted by the College of Wooster, continues on Friday, March 21 with preliminaries scheduled to begin at 11 a.m. and finals promptly at 6:30 p.m.