WORCESTER -- It was not the home-opener the WPI men's swimming and diving were looking for after winning twice on the road last weekend. In a Halloween match-up, WPI (3-2) defeated Brandeis 204-82, but lost to NEWMAC foes Babson (131-162) and Coast Guard (117-178). Despite the defeats, WPI walked away from the meet with multiple top five finishes as well as trio of victories from first-year Lucas Brown (Viera, FL).
 
Brown started off the evening with a dominant showing in the men's 1000 freestyle. After a tight opening 500, Brown pulled away from the competition on the back half and earned himself a win of over ten seconds as he hit the wall in 10:04.30. Later on in the meet, Brown completed the distance sweep as he earned top honors in the 500, as his 4:52.84 was over six seconds clear of his nearest competition. Behind the Floridian in the events were fellow first years Michael Webb (Medway, MA) and Deion Chung (Honolulu, HI), who each earned a pair of 6th place finishes, going 10:55.48 and 5:03.23, respectively. 
 
Brown rounded out his individual events with a victory in the 200 IM. With his tightest margin of victory, .61, the first year's freestyle strength proved to be the difference as he posted a time of 1:58.38. Taking 6th behind him in the event was senior Christopher Smith (Northbridge, MA), who posted a time of 2:00.45.
 
Smith opened the meet, swimming the backstroke leg of the A-medley relay, which placed 3rd overall. Joined by Luke Vipond (Mahtomedi, MN), Lucas Pralle (Wayland, MA) and Keegan Rowe (Harpswell, ME), the foursome posted a time of 1:38.41, placing just ahead of WPI B-relay, who touched in 4th overall at 1:38.95. In addition to his relay contributions, Smith earned himself a 3rd place finish in the 200 back (1:58.96) and was WPI's second best finisher in the 100 back going 54.99 to place 5th. 
 
Two places ahead of him in 3rd was sophomore Angad Ahluwalia (Attleboro, MA), who hit the wall in 54.67. Ahluwalia's 100 free performance was even better as the sophomore joined Brown at the top of the results, as his 47.91 from lane 1 was the lone sub-48 second performance of the evening. He ended his evening leading off the 3rd place finishing 200 free relay, joined by first-year Kuba Latawiec (Newington, CT), sophomore Angelo Reade (Newburgh, NY), and junior Nolan Schlessman (Sudbury, MA), with the quartet going 1:27.54.
 
Adding valuable points and posting a pair of victories in the diving was sophomore Tom Fitzgerald (East Longmeadow, MA). Fitzgerald posted the lone score over 200 in the 1m competition, earning a score of 213.50. On the 3m, his 217.40 was again the lone score above the 200-point mark. Improving upon his scores from last weekend, first-year Aaron Lakin (Hamden, CT), who placed 4th in both competitions, scoring 152.40 and 151.40 points. 
 
WPI returns to action against Assumption, Clark, and Holy Cross as the Engineers host the Worcester City Championships on Saturday, the 8th of November, at 10:00am.   
 
Full Results
 
Team Scores