Hayes Sets Second School Record at Big Al Open as Men’s Swimming & Diving Finishes Second

Sunday, December 8

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Big Al Open

Hayes Sets Second School Record at Big Al Open as Men’s Swimming & Diving Finishes Second

12/8/2019 10:09:00 PM | Men's Swimming & Diving

Results

PRINCETON, N.J. – The Brown men's swimming & diving team finished second at the Big Al Open with 743.50 points on Sunday at DeNunzio Pool. Sophomore Ben Hayes (River Hills, Wis.) broke his second school record of the invite (200 breaststroke, 400 IM), bringing the Bears' total to five school records set over the weekend.

Host Princeton won the Big Al Open with a score of 887.50 while Denver (699.50) rounded out the top three.

"This weekend was a huge step forward for our program," said head coach Kevin Norman. "We started on a high note when Lukas Scheidl broke the school record in the 500 freestyle in our first race of the meet then Michael Lincoln broke that record less than ten minutes later. That definitely set the tone. For three days the team remained incredibly focused and competed at a very high level. The Big Al Open was very competitive this year with the addition of Penn State and Denver, to finish second is something we are extremely proud of and will build off of moving forward."

Sophomore Nico Ortega (Caracas, Venezuela/Westport, Conn.) led the Bears in the 1650 freestyle, the first event of the night, with a time of 15:34.92 for eighth place while junior Michael Lincoln (Palo Alto, Calif.) (15:35.76, 10th), junior Riley Pestorius (Bridgewater, N.J.) (15:40.20, 11th) and freshman Tyler Lu (Pleasanton, Calif.) (15:40.52, 12th) followed.

The 200 backstroke saw senior Coley Sullivan (Louisville, Ky.) finish second overall with a time of 1:44.43, just off of the school record time of 1:44.27 he set in 2017. Brown took second, third, fourth and fifth place in the B-Final, with sophomore Reid Arwood (Asheville, N.C.) leading the group in second (1:47.82) and freshman Colin MacKellar (Southbury, Conn.) (1:48.60), freshman Lukas Scheidl (Mendham, N.J.) (1:48.74) and sophomore Billy Knaul (Sudbury, Mass.) (1:49.19) behind him.

Senior Alex Smilenov (Katy, Texas) turned in a fourth-place finish in the A-Final of the 100 freestyle with a time of 43.87. Senior Cody Cline (Wellington, Fla.) (43.98, sixth) and senior Joon Sung (Los Angeles, Calif.) (44.10, seventh) also competed in the top final. Lincoln additionally placed third in the B-Final in 44.54.

Hayes' prelim time of 1:58.33 in the 200 breaststroke broke the Brown record of 1:58.50 set by Christopher Meyers in 2016. His finals time of 1:59.03 earned him fourth place in the A-Final at night. Freshman Vincent Huang (League City, Texas) also recorded a sixth-place showing in the A-Final with a time of 1:59.66 while senior Toshiki Takahashi (Tokyo, Japan) came in sixth in the B-Final (2:02.58).

Sophomore I.I. Qiao (Naperville, Ill.) led the Bears in the B-Final of the 200 butterfly, touching the wall in 1:48.49 while Scheidl (1:49.88, fourth), junior Alex Park (Dix Hills, N.Y.) (1:50.75, fifth) and Pestorius (1:52.59, seventh) rounded out the race.

Brown finished the invitational by finishing second in the 400 freestyle relay with a team of Cline, Lincoln, Sullivan and Smilenov racing to a time of 2:53.77.

The Bears next return to action with a conference meet at Harvard on Wednesday, Jan. 15 starting at 1:00 p.m.