CAMBRIDGE, Mass.  -  The no. 22 Coast Guard Academy men's swimming & diving team took their first loss of the season today in a 103-191 defeat at no. 7 MIT. The Bears picked saw four first-place finishes and ten top-three placements on the day, keeping up enough to hand the reigning and 18-time NEWMAC champions it's smallest margin of victory this season.

Coast Guard heads home with a 7-1 record, while the Engineers improve to 3-2. MIT will head to Williamstown, Massachusetts, on Friday, January 17th, for dual between New England Division III juggernauts with no. 14 Williams College (6-0). The Ephs are 21-time NESCAC Men's Swimming & Diving champions.

Sophomore Noah Reice (Wilmington, Del.) and senior team captain Colin Twiss (Mahwah, N.J.) both swam to pairs of first-place finishes. Reice took won the 50-yard freestyle and 100-yard butterfly with respective times of 21.28 and 49.91. Twiss took the 200-yard freestyle with a 1:40.62 and outswam his competition in the 100-yard free with a 46.46.

Coast Guard two more top-three finishers in the individual competitions. Senior team captain Sean Lyman (Pennsburg, Pa.) placed second in the 1,000-yard freestyle (9:48.21), third in the 500-yard freestyle (4:48.21), and second in the 200-yard individual medley (1:58.20); and sophomore Blaise Minckler (Hilton Head Island, S.C.) clocked in at 1:57.87 to place second in the 200-yard butterfly.

In relay competition, the team of freshman Zach McGowen (Springfield, Va.), sophomore John Kaleta (Morrow, Ohio), and Reice and Twiss placed second in the 200-yard medley relay with a time of 1:35.44. The 200-yard freestyle relay saw Reice, McGowan, freshman Luke Giguere (Belchertown, Mass.), and Twiss team up to swim a 1:25.32 for second place. Finally, in diving, sophomore Colbrin Blanchette (Edwardsville, Ill.) and senior Drew Harris (Murraysville, Pa.) saw respective scores of 174.00 and 112.05 on the 1-meter board; and 171.60 and 155.63 on the 3-meter board.

The Bears will host arch-nemeses from the Merchant Marine Academy (5-0) in their next meet on Saturday, January 18th. Coast Guard is 4-3 in contests dating back to the 2005-06 season, and the Mariners won last year's meet-up at Kings Point by a score of 161-139.