WATERVILLE, Maine - The Tufts University men's swimming & diving team finished strong under difficult circumstances at the 2022 NESCAC Championships hosted by Colby College today.
Freshman Eric Lundgren became the first Jumbo to win an event at NESCAC's this season as he was first in the 200 backstroke today with a 1:46.52 time. He is Tufts' first freshman conference champion since Tar Tar Jarusinchai won the 200 individual medley in 2019. The Jumbos had four finishers in the top 11 of the 200 back today, including Vedant Bapna joining Lundgren in swimming an NCAA B cut with a 1:49.77 time for ninth.
Tufts finished second at the meet with a 1577.5 score, well ahead of third-place Amherst College (1069) and fourth-place Connecticut College (1012.5). Williams College is the 2022 NESCAC champion after scoring 2086 points at the four-day meet.
Illness struck the Jumbo team this weekend, which prevented some of their top swimmers from competing in some events. However, Tufts managed its third straight runner-up showing after winning the conference title in 2018.
The Jumbos scored big in the 100 freestyle with Peter LaBarge and Victor Vollbrechthausen. They were third (44.81) and fourth (44.82) in the final, respectively, with NCAA B marks.
Freshman Darrien Johnsen had a strong performance in the 200 breaststroke, moving up from eighth in the preliminaries (2:04.42) to fourth in Sunday night's final. His 2:03.24 finish was just a shade off the Tufts record of 2:03.15.
Tufts' divers represented well again in Sunday's three-meter event. Zach Lawrence was third with a 446.85 score, Kai Renshaw took seventh (382.45) and Ethan Cobos was eighth (363.20). Tufts was the only team with more than one diver to make the finals in both the one-meter and three-meter events.
For the 1,650 freestyle, Tufts placed two in the top nine with Evan Szablewski's 15:53.68 taking fifth and Eli Houlton touching ninth in 16:04.42. Both are NCAA B marks. Tim Chou and Soeren Euvrard were ninth and 10th in the 200 butterfly with 1:51.27 and 1:51.54 times, respectively.
Tufts put a wrap on the 2022 NESCAC meet with a third place in the 400 freestyle relay (3:00.95). Euvrard, Vollbrechthausen, Lundgren and LaBarge were the foursome.
