Men’s swim and dive clinches 8th straight NEWMAC championship
Robert Rusch—The Tech
The MIT men’s swimming and diving team clinched their eighth straight (and tenth overall) New England Women’s and Men’s Athletic Conference (NEWMAC) Championship over the weekend.
For his excellent performance at the Conference championship, Elliot Forde ’19 was named NEWMAC Men’s Diver of the Year.
The Engineers totaled 1,468 points over the four-day Championship meet. Behind MIT was WPI with 1,097.5 points, the U.S. Coast Guard Academy (1,003.5 points), Wheaton College (558.5), Springfield College (493), Babson College (379), and Clark University (317.5).
Josh Graves ’19 crushed the meet record in the 1650-freestyle by nearly 8.50 seconds with a time of 15:33.44. Graves earned NEWMAC First Team All-Conference accolades and an NCAA “B” cut. Alongside Graves on the podium was Parker Greene ’18, who placed third overall in 16:19.04.
Douglas Kogut ’18 tied the meet record that he set last year as a freshman in the 200-backstroke (1:48.01). Kogut was joined by Luke Eure ’19 who earned NEWMAC Second Team All-Conference honors with a time of 1:50.12.
The Engineers concluded the individual portion of the Championship meet with five student-athletes on the podium in the 200-butterfly, including the top four in the event. Luke Schlueter ’16, who broke the meet record in the preliminaries this morning in 1:49.52, shaved nearly one second off his time in the finals as he finished in 1:48.66.
In the 400-free relay, Jeremy Bogle ’18, Kogut, Joshua Tomazin ’18, and Daryl Neubieser ’16 broke the meet record with a time of 2:59.80.
In the 100-freestyle, the Engineers took second, third, and fourth on the ten team podium. Daryl Neubieser ’16 paced MIT for NEWMAC Second Team All-Conference accolades and a “B” cut with a time of 45.43, just 0.02 seconds behind event winner Andrew Bauer from WPI.
Brandon McKenzie ’19 clinched a podium appearance as he grabbed third place in the 200-breaststroke in a time of 2:04.47 for an NCAA “B” cut, while Justin Chiu ’18 finished in fifth in 2:06.17.
The MIT divers will return to action next weekend at the NCAA Northeast-North Diving Regional, which is scheduled for Friday, February 26 and Saturday, February 27 at Wellesley College.