WORCESTER -- Day one of the Gompei Invitational featured a first place finish as well as a handful of top-five finishes from the WPI men's and women's swimming and diving teams at the Sports and Recreation Center on Friday night. 
 
Christopher Smith (Northbridge, MA) stood atop the podium representing the Engineers following a 200 IM victory as he touched the wall first in a Championship-like time of 1:53.60 shaving 2.30 seconds off of his preliminary time for the victory. 
 
Smith's finish helped the Engineers men's and women's squads to a combined second place finish after Day One of the Invitational. Bryant University stands in first place with 2860.5 points while WPI takes second with 1836 points and Bentley sits in third place with 1208 points. (Full standings below) 
 
Smith later closed out the individual events with a fourth place performance in the 100 Fly, finishing with a 50.36 time, a season best for the sophomore and just over a half a second off his collegiate best. While Andrea Wu (Redmond, WA) brought home a third place finish in the 100 Fly with a season best time of 57.82. 
 
Smith was also a part of the WPI relay team that kicked off the night with a second place finish in the 200 Medley Relay, swimming the leadoff, and backstroke leg, of the race to set the Engineers up for the runner-up finish. The relay squad, composed of Smith, Owen Krause (Potomac Falls, VA), Dean Doubek (Arnold, MD), and Nolan Schlessman (Sudbury, MA) raced into a 1:33.05 finish, cutting 3.81 seconds from its entry time. 
 
The women's relay squad of Audrey Dino (St. Louis, MO), Elinor Ross (Brandon, VT), Wu and Morgan Foltz (North Easton, MA) also started things off with a bang with their fifth place finish in the 200 Medley Relay touching the wall in 1:48.11, the fastest finish of the year by nearly five seconds. 
 
Joining Smith in the A Final in the 200 IM was Fraser Milligan (Middlebury, VT) who finished with a ninth place performance in the finals with a time of 2:00.04 while Foltz took sixth on the women's side of the event, pacing the Engineer racers with a career best time of 2:11 60. 
 
Wu picked up an eighth place performance in the 50 Free with a season best time of 24.72 while Doubek earned a sixth place finish on the men's side of the event, also with a season best time of 21.30 while Tesoro placed ninth in 21.77 and Schlessman took 10th in 21.87. 
 
Austin Aguirre (Santa Maria, CA) earned yet another sixth place finish for the Engineers with a 2:11.71 finish in the 200 Breast, a career best for the senior, while Krause took 10th in the same race with a 2:14.16 finish. Ross was the top women's finisher in the event with a 15th place, 2:33.98 finish, a season best.
 
Aidan Greenfield (Northport, NY) and Aaron Swann (Venice, FL) earned 15th and 17th place finishes respectively as the lone distance competitors for the Engineers in the A/B Finals of the 500 Free. Greenfield finished with a time of 4:50.96 and Swann 4:51.95. 
 
In the final event of the evening the WPI men's squad of Matt Crane (Groton, MA), Schlessman, Doubek and Greenfield combined for yet another second place relay finish as they claimed the runner-up spot in the 800 Free Relay with a time of 7:01.33. 
 
The Engineers, and the rest of the field, will be back in action with Day Two of the Gompei Invitational on Saturday morning, December 8 at 8:30 am. 
 
Combined Team Scores through Day One
1. Bryant 2860.5 
2. WPI 1836
3. Bentley 1208 
4. Springfield 1108
5. Sacred Heart 923
6. Babson 870.5
7. Roger Williams 867.5
8. Brandeis 625.5 
9. Central Connecticut State 755
10. Merrimack 346
11. Norwich 134 
12. Clark 120

Results