THURSDAY'S RESULTS  I  CHAMPIONSHIP SITE  I  PHOTOS

SHENANDOAH, Texas – Thursday's finals session marked the halfway point of 2017 NCAA Division III Men's Swimming & Diving Championship and the Emory University Eagles and Kenyon College Lords remained in first and second place, respectively. With six more events completed, the Lords chipped their day-one deficit of 32 points down to 29.5 points. 

Emory will head into the third-day of competition with a total score of 244 points, while Kenyon owns 214.5 points. The rest of the top-five has Denison University in third place with 193 points, Johns Hopkins University in fourth with 177 points and Williams College in fifth with 125.

The Kenyon men started Thursday's session atypically, tying for an 11th-place finish in the consolation final of the 200-yard medley relay, an event they won eight times in the previous 11 championships. The Lords' time of 1:22.16 would have been good for a sixth-place finish had they qualified for the championship final, but they missed that mark by .15 of a second during preliminaries. Meanwhile, the Emory relay team took the event title with a time of 1:19.03 and opened a 61-point advantage over the Lords.

Kenyon recovered in the next event, the 400-yard individual medley. Four Lords scored points and three placed within the top six finishers. Leading the way was senior Ian Reardon, who tied for third place with a time of 3:52.34. Freshman Mick Bartholomew was fifth in 3:54.81 and sophomore Brooks McCoy took sixth place by clocking in at 3:57.86. Additionally, Kenyon received a tenth-place swim from freshman Colin Reardon who posted a 3:57.89 in the consolation final. Denison's Jackson Lindell finished in 3:47.31 and won the event for the second-straight season, but Kenyon's surge resulted in nearly 50 points and the Lords closed with 11.5 points of Emory.

That margin remained the same in 100-yard butterfly because neither team had a finalist. Kenyon's top swimmer was sophomore Jon Zimdars, who took 21st place with a time of 49.33. Emory's best performance came from Oliver Smith, who posted a 49.31 and finished 20th. Denison, however, began to sneak back into the picture. The Big Red had two scoring swimmers in the event and moved within 45 points of Emory and 33.3 points of Kenyon.

Senior Arthur Conover and sophomore Robert Williams then claimed fourth and 11th place for Kenyon in the 200-yard freestyle. Conover clocked in at 1:37.12 in the championship final, right after Williams dialed up a 1:38.94 in the consolation final. Emory swimmers took second and seventh place, while Evan Holder of Johns Hopkins won the event and broke the longest-standing record in the NCAA books. He turned in a 1:36.42 to top the previous national standard of 1:36.63 established by Kenyon's Dennis Mulvihill in the 1988 season.

Kenyon and Emory had no divers in the one-meter competition, but Denison had a pair, including title-winner Max Levy. The Big Red scored 24 points in the event, but could still could not escape that third-place spot in the team standings.

The final event of the night saw another NCAA record fall. This time it was Emory's 400-yard medley relay squad that accomplished the feat by winning the race in 3:10.51. Teams from Williams and Johns Hopkins were next, while Kenyon occupied fourth place with a time of 3:16.30. That output was produced by Ben Baturka, Trevor Manz, Zimdars and Weston Carpenter.

The race for the team title continues Friday at the Conroe ISD Natatorium, where day-three preliminaries start at 10 a.m. CST and finals go at 6 p.m. CST.