ELKHART, Indiana – In their inaugural year, men's swim finished 6^th in the nation. A team of 5 freshmen came home with athletes winning Individual National Championships, picking up All-American honors, and setting meet records along the way.
 
"From where we were a year ago to where we ended Saturday night was the culmination of a lot of hard work from top to bottom," said Head Coach Robert Gonzalez. "I'm really proud of what we were able to assemble in our inaugural season. We demonstrated improvement, competed at the highest level, and showed the country we are ready to do this."
 
The Crusaders first medal of the meet came on day one. Mate Miszlai, Janos Szabo, Josiah Blankenship, & Braedan Jacobs picked up bronze in the 800-yard Freestyle Relay. The Crusaders dropped a huge 5.1 seconds off their seed time to finish in 6:36.07. Carey challenged SCAD Savannah throughout the race for the silver medal but narrowly missed out by 0.27 seconds. Miszlai, Szabo, Blankenship, & Hunter Boudreau also had a 5^th place finish in the 200-yard Medley Relay, meaning they ended day one with two All-American relay teams.
 
Day two and Carey had their very first Individual National Champion. Miszlai earned the gold medal in the 500-yard Freestyle with a time of 4:23.81. Coming into the day with the top seed, Miszlai went into the finals as the second seed after finishing second in the prelims to SCAD's Kevin Keil. Keil and Miszlai went back and forth throughout the first half of the race. Miszlai, in second at the 350-yard mark, decided to crank it into first gear. Miszlai outsplit Keil in the 8^th 50-yard time, overtook him at the 450-yard mark, and stormed home to finish two body lengths ahead of Keil, earning himself the gold medal.

Jacobs made sure Carey had two top 5 finishes in the 500-yard Freestyle as he picked up 4^th place. Jacobs only finished 8 seconds off winner Miszlai and narrowly missed out on the bronze medal by a little under two seconds.
 
To complete their day two performance, the Crusaders picked up their 3^rd top 5 relay finish. The team of Szabo, Blankenship, Miszlai, & Boudreau finished 4^th in the 200-yard Freestyle Relay with a time of 1:23.37, less than a second off the bronze medal.
 
Day three saw more All-American performances, highlighted by a silver medal for Miszlai in the 400-yard Individual Medley. It was Miszlai and Keil battling once again for 1^st and 2^nd place. Keil took off early and maintained his lead throughout with Miszlai constantly staying within touching distance. Unfortunately, Miszlai was unable to close the gap but cemented his silver medal as he maintained his spot throughout the entirety of the race.
 
Following their All-American performances in the relays, Szabo & Boudreau added their own individual All-American honors in the 200-yard Freestyle and the 100-yard Breaststroke respectively. Szabo picked the perfect time to hit a personal best as he finished in 1:38.67 to finish in 8^th. Boudreau also picked up an 8^th place finish, finishing in 55.74.
 
Szabo and Boudreau then finished out day three with another All-American finish in the 400-yard Medley Relay. Alongside Miszlai & Jacobs, the Crusaders finished in 6^th with a time of 3:20.24.
 
Fourth and final day and more stellar performances from the Crusaders.  Miszlai added his second Individual National Championship of the meet and broke the meet record as he won the 200-yard Backstroke. Miszlai clocked in at 1:44.62 to set the new National Championship record set two years earlier by Jokubas Jankauskas of Cumberlands. Miszlai put in a dominant performance as he led from start to finish to claim the gold medal.
 
Jacobs added an individual All-American finish to his two relays. Racing in lane 7 in the 1650-yard Freestyle, Jacobs spent much of the race in second place behind eventual winner Kiel. As the race went on Jacobs began to fall off, finishing in 7^th place with a time of 15:56.58.
 
The Crusaders finished the meet with a top 8 finish in the 400-yard Freestyle Relay. Miszlai, Szabo, Blankenship, & Boudreau added another All-American finish in a time of 3:03.13.
 
With a team of only five freshmen, the Crusaders finished 6^th overall in the NAIA. A fantastic overall performance from a small and inexperienced team. There is an exciting future ahead as this program grows and builds on it's early success.
 
"I'm proud of our swimmers for their hard work and commitment to our program in taking that leap of faith with me to be a part of a team that we started from scratch," said Gonzales. "It wasn't perfect, but it definitely wasn't bad. To leave with several All-American performances and two national title victories from Mate is something the large majority of schools would love to have. I look forward to the future."