The William & Mary men's swimming team swept the two relays on the first night of the Colonial Athletic Association Championships on Wednesday, extending a pair of remarkable streaks in the process.  W&M scored 80 points in the session to stand fourth out of five teams, while Drexel holds the early lead with 109 points.  Towson is second overall at 99, with UNCW third at 91 and Delaware rounding out the field with 28 points for fifth place.

200 Medley Relay
The first event of the weekend was the 200 medley relay, where the Tribe came in seeded third overall.  Junior Colin Demers (Virginia Beach, Va.) was having none of that, setting the tone early with a school-record split of 22.20 in the 50 back to lead off the team for W&M.  That broke the school record of 22.29 set by Will Manion '16 back in 2015, and staked the Tribe to a lead of almost half a second.  Sophomore Devin McNulty (Herndon, Va.) was next on the breaststroke leg, and boosted W&M's lead up to a full second with a 24.23 split.  On the fly leg, junior Jack Doherty (Middletown, Conn.) went neck-and-neck with All-American Jack Saunderson of Towson, and hit the final exchange with the Tribe still in front of the field by a second.  Junior Ian Thompson (Alexandria, Va.) brought the squad home with a 19.57 split on the freestyle leg, and stopped the clock in 1:26.71 for the win.  That shatter both the W&M school record of 1:27.43, set back in 2014, as well as the conference record of 1:27.40 set by UNCW in 2013.  William & Mary now owns all five conference records in the relay events.

800 Free Relay
After a short break for the men's 1-meter diving event, action in the pool resumed with the 800 free relay, where W&M was riding an eight-year winning streak in the event.  Junior Ben Skopic (Marriottsville, Md.) hit the water first, and steadily worked his way up the field from fourth at the first turn, to handing off with the Tribe in the lead.  Skopic's split of 1:37.90 was the eighth-fastest single performance in school history, and ranks him sixth all-time among athletes.  Next up was his classmate Colin Wright (Williamsburg, Va.), who crushed his split in 1:36.55, second-fastest of any leg in the race, pushing W&M in front by 1.5 seconds.  Senior Carter Kale (Williamsburg, Va.) maintained the lead with a 1:40 split on the third leg, and senior Eric Grimes (Louisville, Ky.) brought it home in 1:36.98, touching the pad at a combined time of 6:31.47 to win the ninth championship in a row.

That was the third-fastest time in school and conference history, and the nine wins in a row for W&M ties the CAA record for a single school in any single event, originally set by George Mason in the 1,650 free between 2004-2012.  The two relay wins on the night for the Tribe also extended another conference record for W&M, which has now won the last eight-straight relay races dating back to the 400 free relay in 2017.  That's the longest relay winning streak in CAA history for any school.  The junior Wright moved into a tie for 12th all-time in the CAA with his 11th career gold medal, and his next win will move him into the top-10 in conference history in a tie for ninth all-time.

The CAA Championships continue Thursday, with prelims in the 500 free, 200 IM, and 50 free beginning at 10 a.m.  Every session of the championships is being streamed live for free on CAA.TV.

2019 Colonial Athletic Association Men's Swimming & Diving Championships
Team Standings (3 of 20 events scored)
1. Drexel 109
2. Towson 99
3. UNCW 91
4. William & Mary 80
5. Delaware 28