MIT Men’s and Women’s Swim and Dive both win NEWMAC
Women’s and men’s teams earn 10th and 12th consecutive titles, respectively
BEN KETTLE — THE TECH
The New England Women's and Men's Athletic Conference (NEWMAC) Men’s and Women’s Swimming and Diving championship was held at the MIT Zesiger Sports and Fitness Center Pool from Thursday, Feb. 20 to Sunday, Feb. 23. The men’s team finished first with 1535 points, while the women’s team finished first with 1356.50 points. At the conclusion of the fourth day, Bouke Edskes ’20 was named the NEWMAC Men’s Swimmer of the Year for the third straight year while Adam Janicki ’23 was named the NEWMAC Men’s Rookie of the Year. In the women’s categories, Edenna Chen ’23 was named the NEWMAC Women’s Rookie of the Year and Blake Zhou ’20 was named the NEWMAC Women’s Diver of the Year.
The men’s team set a number of records and victories over the four-day championship. They started off on the first day by breaking the meet, open, pool, and program records in the 800-free relay with a time of 6:37.29. The 800-free relay consisted of Alex Ellison ’22, James Richardson ’23, Kevin Fang ’21 and Edskes. On the second day, the team broke four records, including the 200-free relay consisting of Sam Ubellacker ’20, Justin Liu ’21, Emilio Sison ’20, and Kyri Chen ’22. Later, Trevor Carter ’23 claimed the league title in the 500-free with a time of 4:30.18 and Ubellacker broke the NEWMAC meet record time in the 50-free with his swim of 20.00 seconds. Last, Tim Kralj ’20, Henry Wang ’23, David He ’22, and Liu won the final of the 400-medley relay in a time of 3:21.55.
On the third day, in the diving well, Jay Lang ’22 broke the MIT program as well as the NEWMAC meet and open records with his preliminary score of 605.10. He returned to finals as the top-seed and scored 587.30 points for the conference title. Later on the third day, the 200-medley relay ‘A’ team of Henry Hu ’21, Chen, Edskes, and Ubellacker closed the night session by breaking the NEWMAC meet record with a time of 1:28.51, just 0.03 seconds shy of tying the NEWMAC open record. The medals and records did not end as the final day’s time trial session began with Edskes breaking the national record in the 100-I.M. with a time of 49.18, followed by him breaking the meet record for 200-fly with a time of 1:47.33. This was followed by Jordan Ren ’22 breaking the NEWMAC meet, NEWMAC open, and MIT program record in the 200-breast as he won the event with a time of 2:00.60. The Engineers closed the championship with another meet record as the quartet of Ubellacker, Ellison, Liu, and Chen won the 400-free relay with a time of 2:58.45 to win the final event of the night. Over the course of the meet, Men’s Swimmer of the Year Edskes won five events and set four meet records.
The women also made the MIT community proud with their excellent performances. This started off with a day-one victory in the 800-free relay comprised of Hannah Mahaffey ’21, Lindsey Bjornstad ’22, Laura Rosado ’22, and Shannon Hagmaier ’22. On the second day, MIT women's 200-free relay team smashed the NEWMAC meet, NEWMAC open, MIT pool, and MIT program record with a swim of 1:33.30. The 200-free relay team consisted of Olivia McGrath ’21, Lilia Staszel ’20, Hagmaier, and Bjornstad. Alongside the relay, the women grabbed four other gold medals in the pool, including the 400 medley relay. In the diving well, MIT swept the top two spots on the 3-meter board. Deborah Wen ’21 claimed the league title with a qualifying score of 526.85, while Zhou took home second place with a qualifying score of 517.75.
On the third day of the meet, the women earned two medals alongside various other top finishes. The 200-medley relay ‘A’ team of Nanette Wu ’20, Chen, McGrath and Staszel broke the NEWMAC meet record with their swim of 1:43.25. This was followed by Chen’s excellent swim in the 100-breast as she broke the NEWMAC meet record with a time of 1:02.29. On the final day of the meet, Chen claimed top honors with her first place finish in the 200-breast while Mahaffey claimed the league title in 200-fly. In the diving well, Zhou claimed the 1-meter conference title with a score of 505.15. To conclude the meet, the Engineers won the 400-free relay with a time of 3:27.19. The four Engineers who made up the relay were Delaney Burns ’20, Rosado, Bjornstad, and Hagmaier.
Due to their outstanding performance in the NEWMAC championship, the swimmers will next travel to Greensboro, North Carolina for the NCAA Division III Championship, to be held at the Greensboro Aquatic Center from March 18 to March 21.