NEW YORK (Feb. 24, 2024) – In what was billed as a last-chance meet for the NCAA Division III Championships meet, the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy men's swimming and diving team ventured into Manhattan for the NYU Winter Invitational at the Palladium Athletic Facility. The two-day event saw several strong performances both in the pool and on the diving board with some NCAA Cuts achieved and Academy records falling in the process of the event.
 
Meet Link

• Complete Results (PDF) 

On the one-meter diving board, three Mariner divers performed well enough to make the cutline once again for the NCAA Regional Championship meet. Senior Devin Dyer (Brandon, Fla.), junior Brendan Griffiths (Easton, Pa.), and sophomore Thomas Cable (Litchfield Park, Ariz.) received the accolades for their performances at the meet. Cable, in addition, etched his named into the record books with an Academy-best 353.10 points after six dives and 567.90 points after 11 dives. The marks broke the near-eight-year records of 346.90 points and 563.75 points, respectively, set by Gerrit Porter '16 at the 2016 NCAA Championships.
 
First-year swimmer Ryan Lester (Heath, Texas) also posted two Academy records in long-distance swims, supplanting the oldest-standing record on the USMMA ledger. Lester first broke his own record in the 1000-yard freestyle with a swim of 9:37.49 before toppling a mark that stood for almost two decades. Lester swam the 1650-free in a time of 15.51.75, which bested the previous record of 15:57.96 that was set by Andrew Dunlevy at the 2006 NCAA Championship meet.
 
In addition to the record-breaking marks, several swimmers swam to lifetime-best performances at the meet. Sophomore Teague Mayer (Boulder, Colo.) posted a time-trial time of 1:49.76 in the 200-yard backstroke with senior Daniel Scherrer (Wellesley, Mass.) winning the 'A' final of the 50-yard freestyle in a time of 20.61 seconds while posting a personal-best time of 45.60s in the 100-free time trial.
 
First-year swimmer Jason Equiano (Yonkers, N.Y.) set his own personal-best mark in the 1650-freestyle with a time of 17:46.89 while classmate Caden Latchaw (Queenstown, Md.) set a personal-best mark in the 200-yard breaststroke preliminaries (2:06.57) only to topple that mark in the final of that discipline with a time of 2:04.92. Latchaw also took second place in the 'B' final of the 100-yard breaststroke with an official time of 57.11 seconds as teammate Luke Dankert (Grand Island, Neb.) finished in third place with a mark of 57.69 seconds.
 
Meanwhile, junior Joseph Decarlo (Powder Springs, Ga.) won the 'B' final of the 200-yard butterfly in a time of 1:52.66 as first-year Peyton Harbin (Rockwall, Texas) took second place in the 'A' final of that discipline (1:57.11).
 
Up next, Cable, Griffiths and Dyer will represent the Mariners at the NCAA Diving Regional Championships next weekend, March 1-2, up at Colby College in Waterville, Maine. Any live links for the meet will be posted on the USMMA Men's Swimming & Diving Schedule Page before it begins.
 
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