Finkel Takes Third in 100 Fly on Night 2 of NCAA – Connecticut College

GREENSBORO, N.C. – Connecticut College senior Justin Finkel (Cheshire, Conn.) captured third place in the 100 butterfly on Thursday night at the 2025 NCAA Division III Swimming & Diving Championships at the Greensboro Aquatic Center.

Finkel, swimming in his second championship final in as many days, clocked in with a time of 46.56. He earned All-America honors for the 11th time of his storied career.

In a race that figured to be a battle between four swimmers—Chicago’s Cooper Costello, Calvin’s David Bajwa, Carnegie Mellon’s Brayden Morford and Finkel—the result certainly lived up to the hype. All four competitors improved on their morning prelim times, with both Costello and Finkel improving by nearly half a second.

Costello, who produced the fastest time of the preliminary round, came home first and broke the NCAA Division III record with a time of 45.97. The next three finishers were separated by four-hundredths of a second, with Finkel finishing between Bajwa (46.54) and Morford (46.58).

Earlier in the day, Finkel also took part in the 200 freestyle relay with Matthew Morris (Alexandria, Va.), Carrick Shea (Grafton, Mass.) and Nicholas Holovacs (Hingham, Mass.). Conn entered the event with the slowest seed time in the field but clocked in at 1:21.81, finishing ahead of eight squads to place 19th overall. The time was less than half a second off the school record, and the Camels beat out teams from Coast Guard, Amherst and Williams.  

The morning began with Evan Lyons (Longmeadow, Mass.) competing in the 400 IM. He finished 27th overall with a time of 4:02.37.

The Camels return to the pool on Friday for four events; Finkel in the 200 fly, Morris in the 100 backstroke, Shea in the 100 breaststroke and Cam Bizjak (Willoughby, Ohio) in the 1M dive. The swimming events will begin at 10:00 a.m. while diving kicks off at 1:00 p.m.