Men's Swimming

Edited: Mar. 24, 2008

Kenyon won nine of 20 events and scored a whopping 635 points to claim its record 29th-straight NCAA Division III Swimming & Diving Championship. Johns Hopkins finished a distant second with 330 points and Denison was third with 314.5 points. Rounding out the top five teams were Emory in fourth place with 261 points and Williams with 211 points. The Lords run of championships are the most by any school in any sport or any division over the history of the NCAA. In fact, excluding the Kenyon women's 17-straight national crowns from 1984-2000, no other team in any sport has won more than 12 straight national titles. The only other current active streak in double digits is the Methodist women's golf program, which has compiled 10 straight titles in Division II. Lord senior Josh Mitchell (Iron Mountain, MI/Kingsford) was voted the NCAA DIII Swimmer of the Year after he won the 100 backstroke, 100 freestyle and swam a leg on four winning relay teams. Junior Matt Harris (Laurel, MD/DeMatha) also won six titles at the meet as he swept both butterfly events and logged time on four winning relay teams.

Denison earned three event championships. Junior David Curtis (Ann Arbor, MI/Pioneer) won the title in the 500 freestyle, then successfully defended his title in the 200 free. He also led the Big Red to their third straight national title in the 800 freestyle relay. Curtis now has seven national championships in three national meets. Senior Lowell Byers (Chappaqua, NY/Horace Greeley) finished his career as part of the first-place 800 free relay. He accumulated four national titles and 24 top-seven finishes at the national meet during his tenure with the Big Red. Senior diver Stephen Julka (Madison, WI/Memorial) reached the consolation of the men's three-meter competition and placed 15th overall with 390.40 points in six dives. He won the consolation heat iof the one-meter springboard and set a new Denison six-dive record in the process. This was Julka's second national meet appearance.

Wabash sophomore Adam Petro (Indianapolis, IN/Decatur Central) set school records in the 200 backstroke (1:51.74) and 200 butterfly (1:50.97) in the preliminaries of both events. He went on to earn honorable mention All-America honors with a ninth-place finish in the 200 back (1:51.76) and a 12th-place finish in the 200 fly (1:51.55). Sophomore David Gatz (Delaware, OH/Hayes) set an Ohio Wesleyan school record en route to earning honorable mention All-America recognition in the 200 breaststroke. In the preliminaries, he swam 2:04.18 to set the school mark. In the consolation final, he wound up 12th with a time of 2:04.53. He also earned honorable mention honors in the 100 breast and is the first Battling Bishop swimmer to earn All-America honors since 1995. Allegheny senior Jayson Loeffert (Gibsonia, PA/Pine-Richland) placed 21st in the prelims of the one-meter diving competition and 22nd in the three-meter prelims. Wittenberg's Taylor Smith (Mansfield, OH/Senior) finished 44th in the 50 freestyle, 23rd in the 100 backstroke and 30th in the 200 back.