Richter Successfully Defends 200 Butterfly Crown

SCRANTON, Pa. — Morgan Richter (Cleburne, Texas/Cleburne) repeated as the 200-yard butterfly champion tonight at the 2014 Landmark Conference Men's Swimming & Diving Championships, and by doing so, he becomes only the second male swimmer in the history of Goucher's swimming program to have earned three conference titles.

The sophomore broke the existing school, pool and meet records by completing the event in 1:54.23, which provided him with more than a three-second margin of victory. Josh Jepson from the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy (1:57.24) was the runner-up and Logan Amodio from Drew (1:58.62) was third.

In addition to his back-to-back 200 butterfly titles, Richter also took first place in the 100 butterfly at this year's meet. His three individual conference titles matches the total won by Mike Raley, who was the Capital Athletic Conference champion in both breaststroke events and the 200 individual medley in 1996.

The Gophers had three other swimmers in the championship finals of an event on the meet's final day: Colin Richter (Cleburne, Texas/Cleburne) in the 200 backstroke, Sam Davis (Wilmington, Del./Wilmington Friends) in the 100 freestyle and Ben Shriner (Arlington, Mass./Arlington) in the 1650 free.

Colin Richter swam the fastest 200 back in school history to place fourth over in that event, earning 15 points for Goucher. He shaved 13-hundredths of a second off the existing record established by Kyle Williams in 2011. Davis, who made it to the top eight final grouping in the 100 free by 11-hundredths of a second, finished in eighth place (:48.57), and Shriner took 16th place in the 1650 free (18:01.83).

Cody Nelson (Duanesburg, N.Y./Schalmont) was in the consolation finals of the 200 breast where he was clocked at 2:15.31, good for 10th place. Patrick McNeel (Flagstaff, Ariz./Flagstaff) took 16th place in the 200 butterfly (2:12.25).

The three-day meet concluded with the men's 400 free relay and Goucher's entry of Colin Richter, Dean Silverman (Chappaqua, N.Y./Horace Greeley), Morgan Richter and Davis recorded a time of 3:18.97 to finish in sixth place.

With the 26 points the Gophers picked up in the 400 free relay, they finished in sixth place in the team scoring with a total of 257 points.