Waterville, ME --- The Engineers of the Swimming and Diving program came up just short in hard fought contest against the Mules of Colby as WPI squared off against them in a snowy afternoon dual meet in Waterville, Maine. Colby emerged victorious 158-130, with many races separated by margin of less than a second.
WPI was greatly assisted by their diving duo of
Tom Fitzgerald (East Longmeadow, MA) and
Aaron Lakin (Hamden, CT), with the pair going 1-2 on both the 1- and 3-meter springboards. Lakin was especially noteworthy as he hit season-best scores on the 3 meter board. While diving was happening in the well, the pool was afire as the WPI's A and B 200 Medley Relays went 2-3.
The A Relay saw
Christopher Smith (Northbridge, MA),
Kyle Sundberg (East Northport, NY),
Dean Doubek (Arnold, MD), and
Sean Tesoro (Reading, MA) take second place in a time of 1:35.10, 1.65 ahead of the B relay squad. All four of them had a strong afternoon as each was at least once the school's top finisher. Smith took on the 100 and 200 backs and ended his day with the 200 IM.
In the 100 back, the senior used a strong back half to pull himself from third into second place as he just out touched training partner
Angad Ahluwalia (Attleboro, MA) by .01, 54.04 to 54.05. Smith had better success in the 200s as he cruised his way to victory in the 200 back with his 1:57.50, marking the lone performance under 2:01. In the 200 IM, he had much more of race. Fourth after the opening fly legs, Smith produced the lone sub-30 backstroke split (29.97) to pull himself into the lead, where he remained until he hit the wall in 1:57.20. The event saw just .64 separating 1st from 4th. Taking fourth was first year
Lucas Brown (Viera, FL) who touched just ahead of teammate
Keegan Rowe (Harpswell, ME).
Like Smith, Brown was WPI's top performer in the distance events as he touched second in the 1000 free (9:49.92) and 500 free (4:48.87), where he was joined by a strong performance by
Samuel Witscher's (Portland, OR) 10:11.26 and
Gavin McCullough's (Colorado Springs, CO) 4:56.07, both of which were season best times. Brown ended his day with the 400 free relay, where he anchored the C Relay in 50.14.
The 400 free relay was one of the races of the day as WPI's team of Doubek, Tesoro, Ahluwalia, and
Nolan Schlessman (Sudbury, MA) was locked in battle with Colby's A relay. Colby led for the whole race, but could never quite shake the Engineers, who were never far away and despite Schlessman's 47.05 anchor, the quartet came up just short taking 2nd place by .26 with a time of 3:07.26.
The Engineers, will have a quick turnaround once they return from Maine, as they will square off against NEWMAC rivals Wheaton in a Tuesday evening contest, held in Norton with an expected start time of 6:30 pm.
Results
