WORCESTER -- A late sweep in the 200 IM helped propel the WPI men's swimming and diving team to a victory over Wheaton on Thursday night as the Engineers opened up the 2023 half of their season with a 144.5-143.5 victory over the Lyons.  

Christopher Smith (Northbridge, MA), Austin Aguirre (Santa Maria, CA) and Fraser Milligan (Middlebury, VT) went 1-2-3 for the Engineers to gain 16 points while a second place finish in the 200 Free Relay to close things out sealed the victory. Smith clocked in first with a time of 1:57.89, while Aguirre raced into a 1:59.54 finish and Milligan touched the wall in 2:01.36. 

The men's squad came away with six victories on the night, while also finishing with 24 top-3 finishes on the night in the win.  

Smith, Ashton Lyon (Loveland, CO), Kyle Staubi (Red Hook, NY) and Matt Crane (Groton, MA) started things off with a second place finish in the 400 Medley Relay to open the night in 3:33.61, as Wheaton took first by two-tenths of a second.  

Staubi would go on to record the Engineers first victory of the night in the 200 Fly as he and Nikita Zuev (Wallingford, CT) placed 1-2 with times of 1:56.07 and 2:00.98 respectively.  

Crane earned the next first place finish in the 100 Free with a time of 48.64 while Jack Brazer (Peterborough, NH) netted a third place finish in 49.42.  

That was followed by a victory in the 500 Free by Aidan Greenfield (East Northport, NY) with a time of 4:58.58 while Smith added another win in the 100 Fly with a time of 52.19.  

Val Corrente (East Setauket, NY) took home the win in the 3-meter dive with a score of 168.60, earlier bringing home a second place finish in the 1-meter dive with a score of 156.07.  

A 2-3-4 finish in the 1000 Free by Aaron Swann (Venice, FL), Greenfield and Eli Budde (Sykesville, MD) in the first individual race of the day set the tone while WPI followed with a 3-4-5-6 in the 200 Free.  

Wheaton captured 10 of the 16 events on the night with Gavin Cullinan (Cumming, GA) sweeping the Backstroke for the Lyons (100 Back - 53.78 and 200 Back - 1:58.46). 

The Engineers are back at it when they return to the Sports and Recreation Center on Tuesday, Jan. 24 against Clark at 6pm while Wheaton is back in action Saturday at Trinity beginning at 1pm.