Williamstown, MA --- The Men's Swimming and Diving program walked away with one victory as they squared off against the nationally ranked Tufts and Williams programs as well as their NESCAC rivals Trinity (CT). Host Williams, defeated the Engineers (5-4), 227-67, while Tufts emerged victorious 203-91. WPI defeated Trinity, 208-81.
While the defeats and victory appear lopsided, WPI had strong performances up and down the roster, with multiple swimmers putting up season-best times. The tandem of Tom Fitzgerald (East Longmeadow, MA) and Aaron Lakin (Hamden, CT) provided pivotal points on the diving boards, with the pair each securing a pair of top five finishes. On the 3-meter, Fitzgerald, a sophomore and NCAA Regional qualifying diver last season, finished 3rd with a score of 185.45, while Lakin collected 112.55 points for 5th place. On the 1m, Lakin's 152.90 points jumped him up to 4th place, with Fitzgerald once again collecting the bronze.
Bronze was a popular medal for Lucas Brown (Viera, FL) as well. The first-year, started off the afternoon once again breaking the 10-minute barrier in the 1000 free, as his 9:59.50 earned him a 3rd place finish. He equaled that result later on in the meet in the 500, where he set a new season best of 4:49.49. Not content with the brace of bronzes, Brown earned a runner-up finish in the 400 IM, where he went 4:14.32 to finish 2nd overall.
Brown was back in action quickly swimming on the C 200 Free Relay, an event which saw the Engineers earned another bronze as the A-team of Dean Doubek (Arnold, MD), Angad Ahluwalia (Attleboro, MA), Nolan Schlessman (Sudbury, MA) and Sean Tesoro (Reading, MA) teamed up to set a season best time of 1:25.73. Doubek, a junior, led off in 21.46, a time that would have finished 2nd overall in the 50 free, has he swum it. Instead Doubek tackled the 100 back and 100 fly, where he finished 5th overall in both. In the 100 back he touched in 54.63, WPI's top finisher and equaled that spot with his 52.45 in the 100 fly.
His relay teammate, Tesoro, was also the school's top finisher in his events as his 21.98 earned 7th in the 50 free and his 48.42 in the 100 free earned him a 5th place finisher. Fellow junior Schlessman had a strong performance in the 200 free where he set a season best of 1:49.10 to finish 9th, just one spot behind teammate Deion Chung's (Honolulu, HI) 1:48.07. Chung joined Brown in the 500 free and 400 IM where he finished 11th and 10th overall with times of 5:08.01 and 4:29.05 respectively.
You can next catch WPI in action as they host their mid-season competition, the Gompei Invite from the 5th to 7th of December.
Full Results
Team Scores
