WATERVILLE, Maine -- The Bates men's swimming and diving team wrapped up the NESCAC Championships on Sunday, finishing in fourth place out of the 11 schools in the conference.
The fourth-place showing matches the best finish in program history, as the 2019-20 team also finished fourth at NESCACs. The Bobcats finished with 957.5 points over the course of the four-day meet, ahead of rivals fifth-place Colby and sixth-place Bowdoin, and trailing just Williams, Tufts and Amherst.
- Sunday's action saw the Bobcats turn in more impressive performance, none more so than the 400-yard freestyle relay, which broke the program record with their NCAA "B" Cut time of 2:58.55. The combination of first-year John Weigel (Iowa, City, Iowa), sophomore Max Cory (Dublin, Calif.), sophomore Nate Pierce (Fairfield, Maine), and senior captain Mark Gregory (Saratoga Springs, N.Y.) took second place, earning All-NESCAC honors.
- Cory turned in a Bates record-breaking performance in the 100-yard freestyle as well, taking second place with his NCAA "B" Cut time of 44.07 seconds.
- Gregory continued his outstanding meet with a third-place finish in the 1,650-yard freestyle, taking third in an NCAA "B" Cut time of 15:42.22.
- First-year Tim Johnson (Brewster, Mass.) notched a sixth-place showing in the 200-yard backstroke with his NCAA "B" Cut time of 1:48.91 in the championship final after recording a prelims time of 1:48.61.
Initial selections for the NCAA Championships will be announced this Wednesday on ncaa.com, with participants finalized on Monday, March 4.
