Men's Swimming & Diving Victorious at Bates on Friday Night

LEWISTON, ME (January 20, 2023) - Freshman Armaan Sikka won a pair of events to lead the Tufts University men's swimming & diving team to a 131-89 win on the road at NESCAC foe Bates College Friday evening.

Sikka dashed to a 21.31 win in the 50 freestyle, edging Bates' Maximillian Cory (21.43). The Jumbo freshman stand-out had another close win in the 50 butterfly, where his time of 22.83 seconds edged teammate Ethan Schreier who  touched in 23.38 seconds.

Schreier added his own victory in the 200 freestyle at 1:44.36.

Brothers Zach and Jeremy Lawrence combined to win the diving events for the Jumbos. Zach was first off the one-meter board with a 316.57 score, with Jeremy second at 291.07 points. Then in the three-meter competition, Jeremy's 287.78 score was first and Zach's 273.60 finished as the runner-up.

Louie Demetriades joined Sikka as freshman winners for the Jumbos, swimming 9:57.51 to take the 1,000 freestyle. Senior Evan Szablewski added a win in an uncommon 400 freestyle race with a 3:48.33 winning time.

Bates College was very competitive tonight, placing first in five of the 13 events. Bobcat Nathan Berry won both the 100 individual medley (53.11) and the 50 backstroke (22.88).

Other individual runner-up performances for the Jumbos came from Connor Townson in the 100 IM (54.35), Michael Damelio in the 100 free (48.22) and Vedant Bapna in the 50 backstroke (24.35). Tufts' 400 medley relay of Schreier, Willie Xu, Tim Chou and Sikka was also second in their race (3:27.84). Xu was Tufts' top 50 breaststroke finisher in 27.14 seconds.

A mixed 200 free relay was contested to end the meet, with Jumbos Damelio and Will Stearns from the men's team, and Elle Morse and Katelin Ulmer of the women's team winning with a 1:31.73 mark.

The Tufts team will travel home from Maine tonight and get ready to face MIT at home in Hamilton Pool tomorrow beginning at 1 pm.