The Emory University Men's Swimming and Diving team saved their best performances for last, winning national championships in three of the final six events contested as the 2019 NCAA Division III Championships concluded Saturday night in Greensboro, NC.
With the three additional event titles on the final day of competition, the Eagles made a final push to finish as the national team runners-up for the second straight season. With their 447.5 total team points, Emory was able to edge out third-place Kenyon by just half of a point. It is the fourth consecutive and 17th time overall the Eagles have finished within the top three at the national meet.
During the span of the four-day meet, Emory recorded five event national championships, 19 All-America honors and 12 All-America Honorable Mention certificates.
The night began with senior Thomas Gordon defending his 1,650 Freestyle championship, winning the event in a time of 15:14.84. The title marked Gordon's second individual championship of the meet after he won gold in the 500 Freestyle on Wednesday.
Senior Trey Kolleck followed up his classmate with his first-ever individual national title of his career, winning the 100 Freestyle with a time of 43.31.
Freshman Jason Hamilton rounded out the Emory champions on evening as the freshman earned his first-ever individual title, winning the 200 Breaststroke at 1:57.34.
In addition, the Eagles were national runners-up in the final event of the meet, the 400 Freestyle Relay, as Kolleck, senior Matt Rogers, junior Sage Ono and freshman Colin LaFave touched at 2:57.90. In the anchor leg, Kolleck swam a blistering 42.81, a mark faster than former Eagle Oliver Smith's DIII national record of 42.98, to chase down Denison's Robert Wang but ran out of pool as the Big Red won the event by .38 seconds.
Ono and freshmen Lucas Bumgarner and Zach Lorson rounded out the All-America performers for the Eagles on the fourth and final day of competition. Bumgarner finished sixth in the 3-meter dive with a score 523.20 while both Lorson and Ono had eighth place efforts with Lorson in the 1,650 Freestyle (15:14.84) and Ono in the 100 Freestyle (44.91).
In the 200 Backstroke, the Eagles saw three All-America Honorable Mentions with freshman Pat Pema placing 10th at 1:47.45, Rogers in 11th at 1:48.21 and freshman Lawrence Redmond in 15th at 1:48.89.