Manhattan swim and dive finished their regular season this weekend with a third place at the Manhattan Invitational. Friday, the diving team hosted the last diving meet, and the swim meet followed on Saturday.

The team had one of its better performances with many swimmers posting season-best times. This tough swimming won them the bronze medal as they hosted 15 different teams.

Seaman won the gold medal with a score of 497 points, McPherson outlasted the Indians to gain the silver with 491 points and Manhattan secured the bronze with 300.5 points.

Senior Preston Harrison secured Manhattan’s only first-place finishes by winning the 100 fly with a time of 53.45 and the 100 backstroke with a time of 54.11 seconds.

Other swimmers had strong showings, such as Sophomore Brandon Spielman who pulled out two seventh-place finishes in the 50 (24.35) and 100 freestyle (54.27). Sophomore Xander Say finished fourth in the 500 freestyle with a time of 5:25.96 and seventh in the 100 breaststroke with a time of 1:11.02.

Freshman Igor Sheshukov and junior Zach Payne both finished strong in the 100 breaststroke finished fifth (1:10.72) and sixth (1:10.95) respectively.

The relay teams swam hard and well, winning fourth in the 200-yard freestyle with a time of 1:37.22.

The 400-yard freestyle team also had a strong performance, finishing in third with a time of 3:30.05.

Some swimmers will not go on to compete in the league meet, making this their last meet. For senior Dirk Andrade, it was his last meet ever.

“I feel a little sad that I won’t be able to compete in a swim meet ever again,” Andrade said. “I feel good knowing I left it all out there and seeing how far I’ve come is amazing. My sophomore year when I started swimming my first 50-freestyle time was 35 seconds. Seeing myself able to swim it in 27 seconds now is great.”

The swimmers that will be continuing on to the league meet will need to continue their improvement as they prepare to take on the best teams in the Centennial League on Friday. They will have to bring their A-game to make it past league and on to state.