DELAWARE – Senior Mason Harris became the highest score swimmer, male or female, in school history this weekend as Wilmington finished third of six teams in the Corbiere-Merion Invitational at Ohio Wesleyan University.

Due to weather-related travel difficulties, Wilmington missed the first five events, and keeping Harris (Westerville, OH/Central) from competing in one of his regular events. Instead, he finished second in the 200 butterfly (2:01.06), dropping seven seconds off his career best. He added a second place finish in the mile with an in-season best time of 17:13.09.

Wilmington head coach Trip Breen believes that the missed events cost the Fightin' Quakers the opportunity to finish in second place, and knock off a second NCAA Division II school in the process. Host Ohio Wesleyan won the event with 907 points, followed by Lake Erie (537), Wilmington (506), Urbana (501), Manchester (59) and Defiance (47).

"A lot of the teams rested for this meet, we didn't," said Breen. "You can see our learning process start to take shape. We are taking a step in the right direction. Now we have a break in competition, and we will use the break to step up training to be ready for the end of the season meets."

The Fightin' Quakers return to the pool at Defiance on Saturday, January 10.

Sophomore Erik Spraul (Cincinnati, OH/Princeton) established a new school record in the 400 yard individual medley in 4:24.51, snapping a mark set by Josh Shell in 2012.

Junior David Hawk (Edison, OH/Mount Gilead) set a new in-season best in the 100 yard freestyle (48.88). It was part of Wilmington's sprint revitalization involving three freshmen – Alex Tillapaugh (Wilmington, OH/Wickenburg, AZ), Carter Semenchuk (Rockford, IL/Hononegah) and Anton Blomquist (Stockholm, Sweden/Solna).

"Our male sprinters are really starting to put it together," said Breen. "It's fun watching these guys start to put it together."