This past weekend, the men’s and women’s swim teams traveled to Lewisburg, Pa. to go head-to-head against a Division-I opponent: the Bucknell University Bison. Although both the men and the women took first in multiple races throughout the day, only the men’s team came out victorious, while the women just barely fell short.
The men started out the day by taking first and third in both relays, quickly earning 26 points. Senior Emile Kuyl, freshman Maxwell Chen, junior Brandon Fabian and sophomore Nat Davenport finished first in the 200 Medley Relay with a time of 1:32.35. Freshman Dylan Wachenfeld, senior Peter Lazorchak, and freshmen Jeffrey Vitek and Noah Corbitt finished third in this race. In the 200 Free Relay, Kuyl, Chen, Davenport and Fabian finished first, while freshman Collin Hughes, Corbitt, Vitek and senior Michael Wohl finished in third.
The first individual win of the day went to sophomore Christopher Arena, as he finished the 1000 Free in 9:50.28. Sophomore Riley Mears followed close behind in third place.
Corbitt racked up the next individual win in the 200 Free, and Hughes was less than a second behind him, as he finished in second. Kuyl and Wachenfeld followed suit with another 1-2 finish, as Kuyl took the victory at a time of 52.13 and Wachenfeld closely followed at 53.44.
Chen brought some more excitement to the day as he beat out Bucknell’s Chadd Cummings by just 16 hundredths of a second in the 100 Breast. Chen took the win with an impressive time of 57.20.
Fabian led the Jays with two individual wins, as he took first in both the 50 Free and the 100 Free. After Fabian’s back-to-back wins, Wachenfeld followed with a win of his own in the 200 Back. Sophomore Matt McGough came close and took second.
In the 500 Free, Hughes won with a time of 4:44.78, and senior Erik Bostrom finished in second in 4:47.55. And, to finish off the day, McGough took home a victory in the 400 IM, while Arena placed in third.
Head coach Scott Armstrong commented on the men’s team’s impressive performance this weekend, as they won 11 of the 16 races on the day.
“The coaching staff is proud of the consistent effort and positive approach the team took to a tough weekend of racing. The men’s team took control in dominant fashion and never looked back. We saw big wins from every class on the team as well as both relays,“ Armstrong said.
Although the women didn’t end up grabbing the victory, they still posted an impressive day of competition. Sophomore Emma McElrath opened the individual races with a win in the 1000 Free. Her time of 10:29.07 is the sixth fastest time in school history. Freshman Elaine Lipkin also made her mark as she finished in second.
Freshman Sydney Okubo also finished in first place in her individual race, the 100 Back, touching the wall at 57.15.
Sophomore Carmela Irato finished less than three seconds behind, clocking in at 1:00.11 to earn a second-place finish.
Junior Sonia Lin then won the 100 Breast by a large margin of 1.32 seconds. Junior Michelle Wang continued the win streak with a first-place finish in the 200 Fly, winning by nearly two seconds.
Junior Kristen Petersen also won her event, the 50 Free, with a time of 24.16. Okubo finished the individual races with a second-place finish in the 400 IM with an NCAA B cut of 4:30.49. Lipkin followed close behind to take third place in 4:36.01.
Hopkins finished the day with second and fourth-place finishes in the 200 Free Relay, touching the wall in 1:38.63 and 1:40.19, respectively.
Armstrong was still pleased with the women’s team’s performance, despite the unfavorable outcome.
“It was a close meet today on the women’s side with several pivotal races going down to the touch. We can’t wait to see what we can do in two weeks at Loyola,“ Armstrong said.
Hopkins jumps back into the pool at the annual Thomas Murphy Invitational hosted at Loyola University on Friday, Nov. 2.
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