WILLIAMSBURG, Ky. – The Lindsey Wilson men's swimming team accumulated 462 total team points en route to a second-place finish at the inaugural Mid-South Conference Championships on Saturday hosted by the University of the Cumberlands (Ky.).
The Blue Raiders fell just 86 points behind the host Patriots, who currently rank No. 5 in the latest NAIA Men's Swimming Top 10 Poll.
Campbellsville (Ky.) finished in third with 184 points and Bethel (Tenn.) took fourth with 64 points.
Trailing 291-228 to Cumberlands after the first day of competition on Friday, Lindsey Wilson fought valiantly but was unable to topple the Patriots and claim the conference title.
Lindsey Wilson opened the day with a second-place finish in the 200 yard medley relay event as the team of Jose Prado de Lima, Jonas Muller, Josh Lykins and Iker Larzabal touched the wall in 1:38.63, just 1.33 seconds behind event winner Cumberlands.
The Blue Raiders got their first win of the day in the 1,650 yard freestyle as Prado de Lima dominated the competition by finishing with a time of 16:46.18, nearly 25 seconds faster than the next competitor. With the victory, Prado de Lima became the first Blue Raider of the day to earn all-conference honors as all individual and relay event winners earned MSC All-Conference honors in their respective events.
Ryan Leamy and Shelby Stevenson also competed in the 1,650 freestyle, finishing in third and fourth place, respectively, picking up 23 total points in the process.
Muller picked up the second Blue Raider all-conference honor in the very next event when he won the 200 yard breaststroke with a time of 2:11.34, shaving over 11 seconds off his preliminary qualifying time to win the event.
Gage Setzer finished runner-up in the 200 yard backstroke and Larzabal took third.
In the 100 yard freestyle, Zachary Patzer also took a runner-up finish clocking in at 48.50 in the finals, less than a second behind the event winner. It was a quality finish after beating out 15 total competitors in the event.
Lykins added a third-place finish in the 100 yard butterfly with a time of 54.85 to add another 12 points to the Blue Raiders' team total.
In the 800 yard freestyle event, the relay team of Larzabal, Setzer, Muller and Patzer were neck-and-neck with the Cumberlands relay team but the Patriots managed to pull away in the end to win the event.
In the final event of the championships, the 400 yard freestyle relay, the team of Larzabal, Lykins, Patzer and Prado de Lima swam their way to glory and won the event with a time of 3:18.37, earning all-conference honors for the four-man squad in the vent. Lindsey Wilson finished nearly 30 seconds ahead of the second-place team.
Cumberlands' Vladislav Khoroletec took home both MSC Men's Freshman of the Year and Swimmer of the Year honors. Earlier in the week, Blue Raider head coach Alicia Kemnitz was named the MSC Men's Swimming Coach of the Year.
The Lindsey Wilson men's swimming team now begins preparations for the NAIA Swimming and Diving National Championships set for March 4-7 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
