Princeton, NJ – The Rider University men's swimming and diving team continued action at the 2017 Big Al Invitational hosted by Princeton on Saturday. The three-day event takes place at DeNunzio Pool on the Tigers campus and features eight men's teams. On the second day of action, the Broncs had student-athletes take part in 400 individual medley, 100 fly, 200 free, 100 breast, 100 back, one-meter diving, three-meter diving and the 800 free relay.

In the individual events, five Bronc swimmers qualified for the finals thanks to posting strong times in the preliminaries. Senior Zack Molloy (Toms River, NJ/Toms River HS North) and junior Vincent Gibbons (North Brunswick, NJ/North Brunswick) made the finals in the 200 free thanks to posting times of 1:38.00 and 1:41.36, respectively. In the prelims, Molloy was third and Gibbons was 24th. Senior Maciej Paz (Garfield, NJ/Paramus Catholic) earned a spot in the finals in the 100 fly thanks to coming in 15th in the prelims with a time of 49.85, while junior Carter Paules (Emmaus, PA/Emmaus) advanced to the finals with a time of 57.56 in the 100 breast. His time was good enough for 17th. Senior Ben Smith (Forked River, NJ/Lacey Township) also made the finals.

Paz finished in 15th in the 100 fly thanks to a time of 50.35 in the finals, while Smith was 22nd in the event with a mark of 50.67. Molloy came in eighth in the 200 free with a time of 1:40.97 in the finals and Gibbons ended up in 23rd with a time of 1:41.85. Paules concluded the 100 breast in 19th with a time of 57.75 in the finals.  

In the diving events, freshman Dillon Walles (The Woodlands, TX/The Woodlands High School) and junior Joe Warker (Reading, PA/WIlson) scored points in the one-meter event. Warker finished in sixth with 267.90 points in the finals and Walles posted a score of 246.90 in the finals which was good enough for seventh.

Notes & Quotes
- There are 17 teams total (9 women, 8 men) at the three-day event.
- The Rider men are eighth-place with a score of 135 total points after day one.
- The top-24 swimmers in each event qualified for the finals.
- Walles finished 11th in the 3M with a score of 233.55.  

Up Next
Rider closes action at the Big Al Invitational on Sunday, December 3. Prelims on day three start at 9:00 am and the finals are slated to begin around 5:00 pm.