Results

INDIANAPOLIS – After seven weeks off, the IUPUI men's swimming and diving team returned to action Friday evening at the IUPUI Natatorium and earned a split against Xavier and Ball State.

The Jaguars defeated the Cardinals by a 194-104 margin, while dropping a tightly contested 151-143 decision to Xavier. The Jags picked up five individual wins on the evening led by Lennart Kuester's two victories.

"I was proud of the way the men stepped up and competed today. Despite feeling a little heavy and fatigued in the water, I thought that we battled well in the close races," assistant coach Jake Tapp said. "It came down to the last relay against Xavier which is always exciting. Today's performance should give us confidence for tomorrow's meet against St. Louis and Western Illinois."

The evening started with the 200 medley relay and the Jags got off to the start it needed as the quartet of Luke Haskett, Landon Mintch, Adam Ferguson and Kuester collectively timed in at 1:36.59 to claim the victory over Ball State by .32 seconds.

The 1,000 free was the first individual event and Rich Sunkel swam to a second-place showing with a time of 9:49.50, marking the fourth-best time in school history, before Kuester delivered the first individual win of the day with a first-place time of 1:45.36 in the 200 free.

After the Jags missing out on a podium finish in the 100 back, Ben Weingart emerged with a victory out of lane seven in the 100 breast at 1:00.59, to get the Jags back on track.

Following Weingart, Daniel Heringer placed third in the 200 fly (1:57.43), which was followed by another third place finish from Joshua Garmon in the 50 free at 21.70.

A 15-minute break ensued before Kuester earned his second win of the meet - this time in the 100 free - with a mark of 46.98, and two events later, Ferguson put together a wire-to-wire win in the 200 breast posting a time of 2:09.34.

Sunkel later added another second-place finish, this time in the 500 free, before Alexander Rhoda finished off the individual swimming events with a second-place time of 1:59.34 in the 200 IM.

In diving action, Joshua Carmichael led IUPUI in the 1-meter dive posting a six-dive score of 243.07 to finish second, before Cody Watts won the 3-meter dive with a score of 333.37, which moved him into IUPUI's Top 10 in that event.

To finish the meet, IUPUI placed third in the 200 free relay with its quartet of Garmon, Kevin Lunte, Mason Hamilton and Sunkel earning the best finish out of two Jaguars teams.

The Jags return to action on Saturday, Jan. 11, when they host Western Illinois and Saint Louis at 2 p.m. at the IUPUI Natatorium.