MEDFORD, Mass. – The Tufts University men's swimming and diving team set four program records and finished in first place after the first of three days of the New England Small College Athletic Conference (NESCAC) Championship Friday at Bowdoin.
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| Gu set a NESCAC and school record twice in the same event on Friday. |
The Jumbos finished the first day of competition with 622 points. That puts them 28 points ahead of second-place Williams. Amherst sits in third with 513.5. Tufts has never won the NESCAC Championship in their history and are off to the kind of start they were looking for to change that tonight.
In the morning, the teams competed in preliminary races where the top eight finishers in each event qualified for the finals. The athletes who finished nine through 16 would compete in the consolation finals. At the end of the day, the top three finishers in each event earned All-NESCAC honors. Competitors can also qualify for the NCAA DIII Championships with their times at the conference meet. If they make an NCAA A cut, they will receive automatic NCAA qualification. If they make the NCAA B cut, they will be entered onto a provisional qualifying list, which will make them eligible to qualify, but will have to wait to see how their time stacks up against the rest of the country before qualification is made official.
The Jumbos won three events and came in second twice on the night.
Roger Gu set both a NESCAC and a school record in the 50 freestyle preliminaries, only to break it again in the finals with a time of 19.95. The old school record was held by Owen Rood and had stood since 2010. Gu beat it by nearly four tenths of a second. The time was also good enough to make the B cut. He's the first swimmer in conference history to go under 20 seconds in the event.
Kingsley Bowen won the 50 backstroke in program-record fashion with a time of 22.24. He grabbed 32 points for the Jumbos as he made the B cut. Lorenzo Lau came in eighth in the race and earned 22 points with a time of 23.69. Bowen improved upon his own school record of 22.74 set at NCAA's last season.
The final first-place finish for Tufts was in the 400 medley relay. A team of Bowen, Gu, Matthew Manfre, and Zach Wallace made the B cut with a time of 3:17.86 and earned 64 points. The time also a set a program record, more than a second faster (3:18.97) than last year's NCAA group.
The second-place finishes came in the 200 freestyle relay when Costantino Camerano, Gu, Wallace, and Manfre made the B cut with a time of 1:22.24 and earned 56 points and in the 200 IM when Wallace finished in 1:50.72 with 28 points and made the B cut.
The other program record was set in the 500 freestyle when Tyler Tatro came in fourth with a time of 4:31.79 with 26 points. He made the B cut in the race while bettering the 12-year old Jumbo record of 4:32.57 by Greg Bettencourt from 2006. John LaLime came in sixth with a 4:34.90.
Manfre also came in fifth in the 50 breaststroke with a time of 25.97 and earned Tufts 25 points. Camerano earned a sixth-place finish for the 50 butterfly with a time of 22.64 and 24 points.
In the one-meter diving event Friday evening, Aaron Idelson finished in seventh with a score of 379.65.
The competition continues tomorrow with preliminary races at 10 a.m.
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Written by Curtis Stoychoff, Athletic Communications Intern
