Norton, MA --- Powered by top-five finishes from its relays, the WPI Men's Swimming and Diving team swam to a fourth-place standing after day one of the NEWMAC Championships hosted by Wheaton College on Friday. The Engineers' 200-yard freestyle relay picked up a fourth-place finish, while the 400-yard medley relay earned a third-place result, to lead the team to 98 points with two days of competition to go. MIT currently leads with 303 points.

The relay of Andrew Lybarger (Atlanta, GA), Mason Ruffing (Stone Mountain, GA), Steve Rose (Worcester, MA) and Lee Chiang (Lexington, MA) came in fourth place in the 200-yard freestyle relay in 1:27.49, while Ruffing, Lybarger and Chiang combined with Rob Cakounes (Chelmsford, MA) on the third-place 400-yard medley relay that finished in 3:35.08 for the Engineers' top two finishes on the day.

Alford Green (Portmore, Jamaica), James Perez-Rogers (Woodstock, NY), Cullen O'Brien (Bar Harbor, ME) and Nathan Lee (Bryan, TX) were 12th in the 200-yard freestyle relay (1:29.65) before Perez-Rogers, O'Brien, Green and Rose came back to finish 11th in the 400-yard medley relay (3:42.13).

Other top finishes for the Crimson and Gray included Lybarger's 10th place result in the 50-yard freestyle (21.79), with Chiang close behind in 13th (21.83). Green was 21st, finishing in 22.47. Ruffing picked up WPI's top finish in the 200-yard IM (2:01.25), with Spencer Coffin (Poughkeepsie, NY) coming in 22nd (2:06.9) and Cakounes 24th (2:08.11). JP Miralda (Tegucigalpa, Honduras) ended up 21st in the 500-yard freestyle (5:01.01), just ahead of teammate Nick Catano (Goffstown, NH) in 22nd (5:01.78) and Carl Curran (Keene, NH) in 25th (5:02.62).

WPI will be back in action for day two of the NEWMAC Championships on Saturday beginning at 11am at Wheaton.

Results