Swim and dive teams dominate at MIT Invitational
Engineers set five institute records and earn 14 NCAA cuts in final meet of semester
Jessica L. Wass—The Tech
Both the MIT women’s and men’s teams handily won the MIT Winter Invite held this weekend at the Zesiger center pool. The women’s team edged out second-place New York University by 381 points, and the men’s team beat the also second-place NYU team by 646 points.
In swimming, points are awarded in decreasing amounts to the top 16 individual finishers and to the top 14 relays. Although the top places are ideal, a team can still garner a high score from consistently having more than one swimmer or relay team in the top 5–10.
After the first session on Friday night, the Engineers were ahead by over 100 points for both the men and women. The men’s team went first and second in the 200 yard freestyle relay, and took first, second, third, and fourth places in the 500 yard freestyle with Carlo R. Biedenharn ’14 winning with a time of 4:40.71, 11 seconds faster than his seed time entering the meet. The women’s team took first and third place in the 200 yard individual medley and managed to edge out Harvard University’s A team in the 400 yard medley relay to win first place. The team of Christine K. Rogers ’14, Morganne C. Klein ’14, Anna S. Kokensparger ’13, and Elina L. Hu ’13 beat out Harvard by one second with a time of 3:54.05, which makes the B cut for the NCAA championships. Elizabeth L. Stavely ’11 led the MIT diving team with a third place finish in the 3-meter and a fourth place finish in the 1-meter competition.
On Saturday morning, the Engineers came out strongly, with both the men’s and women’s A and B teams in the top 4 of the 200 yard medley relay. The women’s team of Rogers, Calley L. Murphy ’14, Kokensparger, and Hu won in 1:47.85, less than one second ahead of Wheaton College’s 1:48.28. The men went first and second in the relay, with the team of Brett L. Boval ’12, Michael J. Liao ’14, Wyatt L. Ubellacker ’13, and William C. Dunn ’14 handily winning in 1:33.01. Although an NYU swimmer won the 400 yard individual medley in 4:08.62, the Engineers earned a total of 75 points with Brendan T. Deveney ’13, Jeffrey Lin ’14, Remy A. Mock ’14, Tim Stumbaugh ’12, and Tim Wall ’14 placing second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth, respectively. Ubellacker also won first place in the 100 yard butterfly and qualified for the NCAA Championships with a time of 49.14.
The Engineers dominated the rest of the meet, the men’s team winning first place in every subsequent event. Overall, it was a successful weekend for MIT swimming and diving. The team will take a holiday break before resuming their season on January 6 at Wheaton College.