2020 NAIA Men’s Nationals Day 1: SCAD Crushes 800 Free Relay Meet Record

2020 NAIA Men’s Swimming & Diving National Championship

• Dates: March 4-7, 2020
• Times: Prelims 9 AM; Finals 5 PM
• Location: Allan Jones Aquatic Center – Knoxville, Tennessee (Central Time Zone)
• Defending Champions: Keiser University (2x) (results)
• Psych Sheet
• Live Results: Available here
• Live Video: Available here
• Championship Central

Day One

Savannah College of Art and Design got off to a strong start by downing the NAIA Championship Record, as well as the SCAD program record, in the 800 free relay.

The first session in Knoxville consisted of timed finals of the 800 free relays. Tonight, the athletes will have a night off to attend the NAIA Nationals Banquet. They will be back in the water starting Thursday morning for three full days of prelims/finals sessions.

Day One Results

Men’s 800 Yard Freestyle Relay – Timed Final

• Meet Record: 6:34.98, 3/6/2014, SCAD (Joel Ax / P Cardillo / R Searles / M Shvartsman)

Podium:

1. SCAD Savannah (Zoltan Monori, DJ Nowacki, Kristof Monori, Joel Thatcher): 6:33.05
2. Keiser (Pol Roch, Marcel Nagy, Marti Ranea, Jared Ingram): 6:35.47
3. Lindsey Wilson (James de Goede, Reece Kincaid, Ron Wolfart, Calvin Coetzee): 6:47.18

SCAD’s Monori brothers, junior Zoltan and freshman Kristof, junior DJ Nowacki, and sophomore Joel Thatcher opened the meet with a bold statement on Wednesday. The quartet won the first event with a new meet and SCAD program record of 6:33.05. That took 1.93 seconds off the old mark, set by SCAD’s Joel Ax, Pat Cardillo, Ryan Searles, and Mark Shvartsman in 2014 at NAIA Nationals. Zoltan Monori led off with 1:39.17, 9/10 better than his leadoff a year ago when SCAD finished second with 6:43.32. That time is also 1.1 seconds faster than he went in his silver-medal performance in the 200 free last year. Nowacki followed in 1:40.07. Kristof Monori went 1:38.78 on the third leg, handing off to Thatcher who anchored with 1:35.03. As a comparison, here are the 2014 record-breaking splits, side-by-side:

Keiser finished second with 6:35.47, going 4.1 seconds faster than their winning time from last year, which had been a program record. The Seahawks were represented by sophomore Pol Roch (1:39.29), senior Marcel Nagy (1:37.42), freshman Marti Ranea (1:39.12), and junior Jared Ingram (1:39.64).

Lindsey Wilson (James de Goede, Reece Kincaid, Ron Wolfart, Calvin Coetzee) came in third with 6:47.18, another school record. The quartet was made up of three freshmen and one sophomore (Wolfart).

Midland University (freshmen Caleb Miller and Michael Richmond, sophomore Scott Cain, and junior Tyler Penney) placed 4th with 6:48.18. That takes more than 13 seconds off their previous best of 7:01.29 from conference championships.

Morningside senior Billy Salber, freshman JR Albers, and sophomores James Spicer and Gage Dewsbury set a new school standard by over six seconds with their 13th-place finish of 7:06.07.

University of Saint Mary, while they did not score, swam their first-ever relay at NAIA Nationals and set a program record of 7:37.85. St Andrews was DQd.

Men’s Team Scores – Day 1

1. SCAD Savannah 40
2. Keiser University 34
3. Lindsey Wilson College 32
4. Midland University 30
5. College of Idaho 28
6. University of the Cumberlands 26
7. Union College 24
8. Loyola New Orleans 22
9. Olivet Nazarene University 18
10. Asbury University 14
11. Life University 12
12. St Ambrose 10
13. Morningside College 8
14. Simpson University 6
15. Milligan College 4
16. Campbellsville University 2

Projected Standings

(Includes diving, distance free, and all relays from psych sheet)