The William & Mary men's swimming team was as-advertised Wednesday night at the Colonial Athletic Association Championships, sweeping both relay events and shattering a total of eight records across the two events.  With the first men's diving event also taking place on the first day of the four-day meet, W&M is fourth overall in the team standings with 80 points.  UNCW leads with 134 points, with Towson and Drexel separated by a point for second overall, 92-91.  Delaware rounds out the team standings with 65 points.

200 Medley Relay
The first event of the night was the 200 medley relay, an event that W&M had won each of the last five years.  Senior Colin Demers (Virginia Beach, Va.) led off on the backstroke, and thrilled the crowd with an astonishing 21.17 split to break his own school record of 22.00 from last November.  That put the Tribe in front by more than a second, for senior Ian Bidwell (Pelham, N.Y.) to dive in on the breaststroke.  He also swam the fastest leg of the field, 24.30, to stretch the lead to 1.5 seconds midway through the race.  Senior Jack Doherty (Middletown, Conn.) kept the times dropping with a 20.6 butterfly leg, and the lead grew again, to 2.4 seconds heading into the anchor for senior Ian Thompson (Alexandria, Va.) who brought the Tribe home in 19.45, second-fastest in the race, for its sixth-straight gold.

Overall, W&M's time of 1:25.52 shattered not only its own school record of 1:26.71, but also the CAA championships record and the overall best conference time (both that 1:26.71 set by the Tribe in 2019).  It also broke the Christiansburg Aquatics Center record of 1:26.34 that had stood since 2012, when Virginia Tech won the ACC title in its own pool.  W&M's time was also just half a second (0.55) off an NCAA provisional qualifying mark.  For the team members, Bidwell won his first conference gold, and Demers won his fifth.  Thompson earned win number six, all in relays, and Doherty won his ninth CAA title, also all in relays.

800 Free Relay
After the diving break, W&M was back in action in the 800 free relay.  Junior Christopher Pfuhl (Charlotte, N.C.) kept things calm at first, cruising in second through the majority of his leg, just inches behind the leader, and then goosed the throttle over the final 50 and handed off in the lead by two-tenths in 1:37.45.  That was the ninth-fastest 200 free race in school history.  Next up was senior Colin Wright (Williamsburg, Va.), and he wasted no time blowing open the race with an astonishing 20.9 split in his first 50.  He kept extending the lead en route to a 1:33.96 leg, and on his handoff had staked the Tribe to a seven-second advantage.  Sophomore Graham Hertweck (Greensboro, N.C.) made his CAA Championships debut on the third leg with a 1:38.13, and kept W&M comfortably in front before handing off to senior Ben Skopic (Marriottsville, Md.).  Skopic brought it home in 1:37.32, and W&M's 10th-straight win in the event.

The 10-straight titles for the Tribe in the 800 free relay broke the all-time CAA record for wins in a single event by any one school, a record that had previously been held by George Mason in the 1,650 free (nine-straight from 2005-12).  W&M also broke its own program record, CAA Championships record, and conference overall record with a time of 6:26.86, beating the previous record of 6:30.47 that was set back in 2016.  It was the Tribe's 13th-straight relay win, dating back to the 400 free relay of the 2017 CAA Championships, also a conference record.  Individually, Skopic won his fifth CAA title and Pfuhl his second, while Hertweck won his first gold in his first conference race.  Wright won his 18th career gold medal, tying former JMU great Ryan Frost for second-most in conference history, and his 12th relay win broke a tie with Frost to stand second all-alone in that category.

The CAA Championships resume on Thursday morning, beginning at 10 a.m. with the prelims in the 500 free, 200 IM, and the 50 free.

2020 Colonial Athletic Association Men's Swimming & Diving Championships
Team Standings (3 of 20 events scored)
1. UNCW 134
2. Towson 92
3. Drexel 91
4. William & Mary 80
5. Delaware 65