John Geissinger placed second in the 100 free and anchored the 400 free relay with a 42.85 split helping Denison to third place in the overall standings.

The Denison University men's swimming and diving squad secured their fourth straight top-3 finish at the NCAA Division III Championship on Saturday night from The University of Minnesota Aquatic Center.  Denison finished the four-day championship in third place with 308 points.  The Big Red trailed only Emory University, who placed second with 402 points and conference rival, Kenyon, who took home the Walnut and Bronze with 604 points.

On Saturday night senior John Geissinger had his moment to shine.  Geissinger led off the night by taking second place in the 100 freestyle and he capped it off by swimming a mind-blowing 42.85 split in the anchor of the 400 freestyle relay.

In that 400 free relay the team of David Curtis, Mike Barczak, Chris Bagley and Geissinger were trailing Kenyon by more than a second when Geissinger hit the water to handle the final four laps.  At the mid-way point of his anchor Geissinger touched in 20.33 and would finish in 42.85, just three-tenths of a second shy of Kenyon's winning time of 2:56.56.  The Lords set a new national record in the event and DU came away with their third, top-2 finish in a relay over the last four days.

Had Geissinger posted that split time in the 100 free he would have set a new national record and been the story of the meet.  Instead it was Grove City's Caleb Courage who put together a time of 43.62 to break Division III's oldest standing record.  In 1985 Kenyon's James Born won the 100 freestyle in 43.65 and that record stood for 24 years.  Geissinger's 43.81 came very close to Born's time and landed him in second place in the event.  Bagley would finish 16th in 45.70.  In four years as a national qualifier Geissinger leaves Denison as a 21-time All-American.

Denison would also add three other top-16 finishes on Saturday night.  In the 200 backstroke first-year Robert Barry finished fourth in 1:48.01, missing the school record, held by Adam Ulrich, by just one-hundredth of a second.  Senior Charlie Baldwin placed 13th with a time of 1:51.18.  In the 200 breaststroke it was junior John Nemeth who followed up his 16th place showing a year ago with a 14th place finish and a time of 2:03.07.

Denison men's swimming and diving have posted 26-consecutive top-10 finishes at the NCAA Division III Championships.  This is their second-straight third-place finish and their 19th straight top-5 finish at nationals.

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