CAMBRIDGE, Mass. 12/2/11 – Led by sophomore Drew Ledwith (Keene, N.H.) and his winning time in the 500 free, the Keene State College men's swimming and diving team finished day one of the MIT Invitational 3rd overall. Ledwith's time of 4:33.25 is a solid NCAA provisional time, and would be good enough to qualify for last season's National Championship Meet.

"Drew's best event is the 1650 free tomorrow night," said head coach Jack Fabian. "But I am very pleased with the time he put up and all the guys for that matter. We had three guys under two minutes in the 200 IM, that's something we have never had before."

Earlier in the meet, James Black (Lynn, Mass.), Ledwith, Austin Harris (Essex Junction, VT) and Jared Hyde (Tolland, Conn.) teamed up for a second place finish in the 200 Free Relay in a time of 1:24.38.

Other individual highlights included Hyde's fourth place finish in the 200 IM in a time of 1:55.77. Black rounded out the top individual performances with a 4th place finish in the 50 Free (21.38).

In the last relay event of the night, Randall Dunton (St. Cloud, Florida), Black, Daniel Oliveira (Ludlow, Mass.) and Hyde partnered for a fourth place finish in the 400 Medley Relay in a time of 3:31.70.

The Owls, who will finish out the weekend at the MIT Invitational tomorrow, are third overall with 163 points. "We are in third overall and ahead of teams like Bowdoin and Tufts who we lost dual meets to earlier in the season. This was a good night for our men's program in a very talent-filled field."

Leading the way, host MIT has 395.5 points through the first 10 events.

The KSC women, who did not compete Friday night, will travel to UMass Dartmouth for the Little East Conference Championships set to begin at 11 a.m. on Saturday.