Kingsmen Conclude SCIAC Championships with School Record Relay

CLU places fifth

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Chase Miller was part of the record setting 400 Free Relay in his last competitive race for CLU.

Photo: Tracy Maple

LA MIRADA, Calif. – The Cal Lutheran men’s swimming and diving season came to a close tonight with a school record relay after a pair of athletes advanced to championship finals at the 2013 Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SCIAC) Swimming and Diving Championships hosted by Redlands at Splash! La Mirada.

The weekend concluded with a CLU school record in the 400 Free Relay. The quartet of Conrad Sheffer, Kyle Eckhart, Chase Miller and Tyler Berg combined to swim a 3:09.64 for fourth place.

Individual championship swimming saw two Kingsmen representing the Violet and Gold.

The night opened for CLU with Aaron Waters stepping up on the blocks for the third consecutive evening of racing. He entered the 200 backstroke final as the seven seed after a morning swim of 1:58.62 in preliminaries. Lowering his time to 1:57.94, the CLU sophomore clung to seventh place.

Also swimming a championship race for the Kingsmen tonight was Sheffer who nearly made his way to the podium, lowering his fifth seed time of 2:08.89 in the 200 breaststroke by more than two seconds to 2:06.50 and moving up to place fourth overall. He not only earned an NCAA “B” cut, but he also improved his CLU school record with the clocking.

In his final meet for the Kingsmen, Eckhartswam a 47.90 in the 100 free during preliminaries to enter the consolation heat ranked 14th. His finals swim was a touch slower, 47.93, as he fell to15th place.

Earning trips to the consolation final of the 200 back were Graham Jameson and Philip Anderson. Anderson lowered his 14th seed time of 2:06.15 to 2:04.5, moving up to 13th. Jameson swam a faster race in preliminaries (2:05.05) than he went in finals (2:04.51) to place 14th.   

Two more Kingsmen swam in the 200 breast consolation. Anthony Nguyen completed the race more than two seconds faster than his 2:15.98 seed time, hitting the wall in 2:13.55 tonight, remaining in the 14th spot. In the same heat, Zach Kaija shaved 43 hundredths of a second off his 11th seed time to a 2:14.36, despite dropping to 13th.

Both Jake Hutton and Derrick Graham earned trips to the consolation heat of the 200 butterfly after swimming 2:00.71 and 2:05.03, respectively, this morning to go into the evening race 11th and 16th. Hutton moved up a spot to 10th with a swim under two-minutes in 1:58.99 while Graham jumped to 15th by improving his time to 2:04.15.

This afternoon, Mike Potter took 32 seconds off his previous best time in the 1650, swimming a 17:17.37, finishing 14th.

Mason Hill was the first alternate in the 200 fly after going a 2:05.07 in preliminaries, just four hundredths of a second off the 16th spot that went to teammate Graham.

Miller(48.12) and Berg(48.13) were the first and second alternates in the 100 free tonight after their morning performances. David Sparks was 26th in the event with a 48.88 for the final individual swim of his career.  

In the 200 breast, freshman Luis Burgos earned a top-25 finish, placing 23rd in a time of 2:27.54.

At the conclusion of the three-day meet, Cal Lutheran earned 319 points to finish fifth. The 2013 SCIAC title went to Claremont-Mudd-Scripps (1,170) followed by UR (713), PP (421) and OXY (346). Rounding out the teams were WC (285), ULV (215), CIT (162) and CU (140).

Blake Weber from CMS was named the 2013 SCIAC Athlete of the Year.

Results: Day 3 Finals
Results: Day 3 Preliminaries
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