Elkhart, IN — The Aquinas men's swim and dive team were on the road today (Oct. 14) squaring up against Bethel and Ohio Northern in a quad meet contest held at the Elkhart Aquatic Center. The Saints would put on a show, but would fall to both Bethel and Ohio Northern. The Saints would paddle away winless but not without the addition of more national bids.

The men's A 200 medley relay kicked off the meet with Evan Hurtado, Cesar Robles, Titus Smith and Matt Dumbsky finishing in second place and the B medley (Ian Clapp, Luke Martin, Nick Bracken and Collin Alward) closely followed in fourth place .

Sophomore Conrad Eichbauer led the Saints in the mid-distance freestyle events, finishing in third in the 200 freestyle (1:52.78) and fourth in the 500 freestyle (5:07.99).

Hurtado finished second in the 100 backstroke with a 55.42.

Martin clinched an individual event win in the 100 breaststroke, finishing with a 1:00.31. He was closely followed by Robles, who finished third with a 1:02.91.

Freshman Nick Bracken, sophomore captain Ian Clapp and junior Chris Uzunoe-Chin led the Saints in the 200 butterfly, finishing in fourth (2:10.16), fifth (2:12.32) and sixth place (2:22.91).

Freshman Titus Smith made his mark in the 200 backstroke, placing second overall and clocking a personal best time of 1:59.24, narrowly missing a school record.

Freshman divers Evan Bennett and Troy Borrero clinched first and third place on the 1M springboard, with Bennett setting a new school record with 233.55 points.

On the 3M springboard, Bennett improved his school record with 231.80 points, finishing second overall and out-scoring the reigning national champion from the 2023 NAIA meet on both boards. Borrero finished fourth overall with 181.40 points.

The men's 200 freestyle relay of Dumbsky, Martin, Hurtado and Smith finished in third place overall, out-touching rival Bethel University's relay by over a second.

Coach Kristen Hepp had this to say about todays performance, "It was great to compete at the Elkhart Aquatic Center today, because it's a fast pool and will be the host of our KCAC championship meet in February. The athletes had the opportunity to adjust to the facility and compete against one of our biggest rivals in the conference - Bethel University. It's also rare to be able to compete against an NAIA, NCAA DII and NCAA DIII team in one meet, so we were exposed to some great competition today. I'm very proud of how our divers performed, and they'll play a pivotal role in the final standings at the end of the season. All three divers - Evan Bennet, Troy Borrero, and Sarah Colvin - have qualified for the national meet in Georgia in March.

We also continue to set new school records and claim provisional time standards, so we're moving in the right direction. As we head into fall break next week, we'll have a tough lineup with back-to-back meets at Saginaw Valley State University and Kalamazoo College. We typically have breakout swims by the end of this training block, so you can expect much more out of our teams in these next few weeks."

Aquinas College is quieting down this week with fall break, but the swim and dive team is still making waves as they are back in action next week Friday (Oct. 20) at Saginaw Valley State for a head-to-head contest. The contest will be held at the SVSU Natatorium starting at 5 p.m..