Princeton, NJ – The Rider University men's swimming and diving team opened the 2017 Big Al Invitational hosted by Princeton on Friday. The three-day event takes place at DeNunzio Pool on the Tigers campus and features eight men's teams. On the first day of action, the Broncs had student-athletes take part in the 500 free, 200 individual medley, 50 free, 200 free relay and the 400 medley relay.

In the individual events, three Bronc swimmers qualified for the finals thanks to posting strong times in the preliminaries. Sophomore Justin Carey (Landenberg, PA/Avon Grove) opened with a time of 1:53.13 in the 200 IM which was good enough for 24th and a spot in the final. In the 50 free, both senior Zack Molloy (Toms River, NJ/Toms River HS North) and junior Vincent Gibbons (North Brunswick, NJ/North Brunswick) made the finals. Molloy posted a time of 20.60 in the prelims to sit in seventh and Gibbons landed in 19 with a mark of 20.87.

In the finals, Carey improved his time by nearly two seconds to finish in 19 overall and third in the C-Final in the 200 IM. He posted a time of 1:51.62. Molloy earned 14 points for Rider in the 50 free with a fifth-place finish thanks to a time of 20.50, while Gibbons came in 19 in the event with a time of 20.87.

The 200 free relay quartet of Maciej Paz (Garfield, NJ/Paramus Catholic), Gibbons, Lucas Musselman (Timonium, MD/Loyola Blakefield) and Molloy came in eight with a time of 1:22.97.

In the 400 medley relay, the Bronc foursome of Carey, Carter Paules (Emmaus, PA/Emmaus), Molloy and Gibbons came in fifth-place with a time of 3:19.44.

Notes & Quotes
- There are 17 teams total (9 women, 8 men) at the three-day event.
- The Rider men are sixth-place with a score of 72 total points after day one.
- The top-24 swimmers in each event qualified for the finals.
- Freshman Padraic Cassidy was the top finisher for Rider in the 500 free with a season-best time of 4:46.31. He ended up in 48th in the prelims.
- All three Rider swimmers competing in the 200 IM swam new season-best times.
- Lucas Musselman just missed qualifying for the finals in the 200 IM with a time of 1:53.49 to end up in 28th. He was just .36 seconds away from a qualifying for the finals.
- Carter Paules and Cole May swam their best times of the year in the 200 IM in the prelims.   

Up Next
Rider continues action at the Big Al Invitational on Saturday, December 2. Prelims on day two start at 10:00 am with the men's and women's 200 medley relay and the finals are slated to begin around 5:00 pm.