CAMBRIDGE, MA (December 2, 2023) – Junior
Lara Wujciak of the Tufts women's swimming & diving team won the 200 butterfly with a 2:02.10 time during Saturday's events at the MIT Winter Invitational.
Wujciak's finish was just four-tenths of a second off her school-record time of 2:01.71 in the event. The mark was also well under the NCAA B cut of 2:05.26. First-year
Elena Harrison was second in the 200 fly finals (2:05.71).
Those were among several fine performances by the Jumbos, who scored 723 team points at the meet today to place second out of six teams thus far.
Tufts had started tonight's finals with a second-place time of 1:34.60 in the 200 freestyle relay. That's below the NCAA B time (1:35.37) and was submitted by sophomore
Isa Chambers, senior
Jillian Cudney, junior
Emma Claus and Harrison. The time is #8 all-time in the event at Tufts.
Harrison would later swim 57.14 in the 100 backstroke finals, second in the race and placing her #3 all-time at Tufts. Sophomore Maggie Hagberg timed a strong 57.44 seconds in the preliminaries of the event Saturday morning.
Sophomore
Quinci Wheeler was near the pace of her school record in the 100 breaststroke preliminaries this morning. Her 1:03.89 was just three-tenths of a second slower than her 1:03.58 school record. Today's was a 2023 NCAA B mark (1:04.39). First-year
Aliyah Larson (1:05.44) and sophomore
Avery Newcomer (1:05.79) had good preliminary races in the 100 breast as well.
In the 400 individual medley, sophomore
Madeleine Dunn was just under the 4:29.67 NCAA B time with her 4:29.38 preliminary swim. Dunn's mark placed her fifth all-time at Tufts, and junior
Cierra McCarty's 4:30.33 in the finals of the event placed her seventh all-time for the Jumbos.
Cudney was the 50 freestyle runner-up with a 23.66 sprint. Chambers, who had a 24.11 lead leg in the 200 free relay, swam 24.18 in the 50 free preliminaries this morning. Tufts' top showing in the 200 freestyle final was a 1:54.35 time by first-year
Selin Tuncay for fifth place.
The Jumbos closed the meet with a strong 3:51.06 time that was an NCAA B mark (3:51.17) and #8 all-time in team history. The foursome was Harrison, Wheeler, sophomore
Jade Foltenyi and Cudney.
In diving today, sophomore
Malia Leung had her career-best three-meter score for 11 dives with a 438.60 for fourth place. It surpassed the NCAA qualifying mark and ranks her seventh among Jumbo divers all-time.
Host MIT leads the meet with a 949 score, while RPI is behind Tufts in third place (480).
Sunday's final day of the competition at the MIT Winter Invitational has preliminaries beginning at 10 AM and finals at 6 PM.
--JUMBOS--
