WPI 123, UMass Dartmouth 118

North Dartmouth, MA --- Andrew Lybarger (Atlanta, GA) continued his impressive sophomore season on Thursday evening, winning two races to lead the way as Men's Swimming and Diving narrowly edged UMass Dartmouth on the road, 123-118.  With the win, WPI improved to 2-4 on the season, while UMass Dartmouth tumbled to 4-3.

The Engineers won seven of the 13 events, featuring five different individual event winners and a relay victory. Lybarger swam to victories in the 200-yard IM (2:04.50) and the 100-yard freestyle (49.33) to key WPI's effort. Sophomore Eric Prouty (Auburn, MA) added a win in the 200-yard butterfly (2:08.57), while freshman Duje Jelaska (Brookfield, CT) won the 200-yard backstroke (2:07.59). 

The Crimson and Gray also won both long-distance races, with Carl Curran (Keene, NH) topping the field in the 500-yard freestyle (5:12.87) and Nick Catano (Goffstown, NH) touching the wall first in the 1000-yard free (11:03.06). Catano added a second-place finish in the 500-yard freestyle (5:20.14), Jelaska was second in the 1000-yard free (11:13.79) and Curran was the runner-up in the 200-yard breaststroke (2:29.95).

Trailing going into the final event, WPI closed out the meet by going 1-2 in the 200-yard freestyle relay to seal the come-from-behind road win.  The team of Mason Ruffing (Stone Mountain, GA), Catano, Curran and Lybarger won the race in a time 1:32.90 while the combo of senior captain Steve Rose (Worcester, MA), Spencer Coffin (Poughkeepsie, NY), JP Miralda (Tegucigalpa, Honduras) and Lee Chiang (Lexington, MA) earned valueable second place points (1:34.21)

Other strong performances included Rose's second-place showing in the 200-yard freestyle (1:51.81) and Alford Green's (Portmore, Jamaica) second-place result in the 50-yard free (22.89).

Men's Swimming and Diving will return to the pool on Wednesday February 3rd when they travel across town to take on Clark at 6:30pm.

Results