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| Paul Schwartz swam five personal-best times for the Jumbos at BU. |
The Tufts University men's swimming & diving team traveled to Boston University for their final event before the New England Small College Athletic Conference (NESCAC) Championships.
MIT joins Tufts as other Division III programs while they are also competing against Division I schools, Boston College Boston University, Brown University, Dartmouth College, Fairfield University, and Iona College. The meet is set up to give teams a final primer before their conference championship meets.
The Jumbos saw great success throughout the weekend, achieving 28 life times best performances. Among those swims were 10 swims that were top-10 swims in the program's history.
Greg Callahan, a senior captain, started the meet right for the Jumbos as he had a personal best in the 500 freestyle (4:54.40). Paul Schwartz followed that up by going a personal best in the 500 freestyle as well in a time of 4:43.91. Schwartz had five personal best times on the weekend (100 free-50.20 , 200 free- 1:47.54, 500 free, 1000 free- 9:59.21, 1650 free- 16:27.51- 9th all time).
The momentum carried into the 200 IM as Connor Doyle (1:54.46) and Christian Schoen (1:57.88) would go season bests as they finished 2nd and 10th respectively.
In the 50 freestyle, a senior lead the way as Tim Gronet was 3rd and the top finisher for Tufts (21.24). It was also good for 10th all time in program history. It was the first of three personal best for Gronet (50 back- 24.35 and 50 breast- 27.42). Zac Spalding (21.76), Noah Zhang (21.23- 9th all time), and Otto Laasko (21.39) would have personal best times in the 50 free at the meet.
There were several other swimmers who broke into the all-time top 10 swims this weekend. Alex Burnam had a sensational meet having top 10 swims in both the 100 breaststroke (57.60- 6th all-time) and 200 breaststroke (2:04.71- 2nd all-time) in addition to having two other personal best swims in the meet. Kuan Lee in the 50 breaststroke (26.37- 6th all-time) and 50 breaststroke relay split (26.12- 8th all time). Noah Zhang added another swim later in the meet in a 50 butterfly relay split (22.51- 10th all time). First-year Otto Laakso added himself to the top-10 list for the first time in the 100 freestyle (46.23- 9th all-time). Victor Vollbrechthausen added his name to the 200 freestyle list as well (1:41.14- 6th all-time).
Personal best swims were plentiful at the meet. Drew Hollett added a personal best in the 50 breaststroke (28.24). Trevor Serman also threw in a trio of best times in the 50 butterfly (23.57), 50 backstroke (24.52), and 100 butterfly (51.25).
On the boards, the divers had a strong performance as well as Zach Lawrence, Kai Renshaw, and Jacob Morales finished 2nd, 3rd, and 4th in the 3 meter diving.
The Jumbos return to action on Thursday, February 20th for the New England Small College Athletic Conference (NESCAC) Championships. The event runs from Thursday through Sunday at Williams College. The 800 freestyle relay begins at 7:00pm.
