WATERVILLE, ME (February 24, 2024) – Sophomore
Armaan Sikka won the 100 butterfly final, and freshman
Jay Wilkinson was first in three-meter diving to highlight the third day of the New England Small College Athletic Conference (NESCSAC) Men's Swimming & Diving Championships for Tufts University on Saturday.
Wilkinson's win gives him a sweep of the diving events for the Jumbos. Today he won the three-meter competition with a 525.70 score in the finals. He had been second in today's preliminaries, but out-scored Williams College's Haochen Liu (478.10) in the finals tonight to win. Wilkinson adds this to the one-meter championship that he won at NESCAC's yesterday. Freshman
Elias Brandt also scored sixth for Tufts in the three-meter event today with a 371.85 score.
Sikka, NESCAC's Rookie of the Year in 2023, won his first individual conference title with a time of 47.84 seconds in the 100 butterfly final tonight. He led a strong scoring contingent for Tufts, including junior
Soeren Euvrard who was the third-place finisher (48.15). Senior
Will Stearns placed fifth (48.54) and junior
Ethan Schreier took sixth (48.54). All four of these Jumbos recorded NCAA "B" cuts in either the finals or the preliminaries this morning. Senior
Tim Chou also scored 15th for Tufts in 50.07 seconds.
Junior
Emmett Adams and freshman
Rafae Shafi both broke school records for the second straight day at the meet on Saturday. Adams swam 54.62 in the 100 breaststroke preliminaries for a new school standard, and Shafi's 9:12.18 in the 1000 freestyle is a school record. Adams erased teammate
Charlie Duffy's 55.56 from the record book, and Shafi replaced John LaLime's 9:22.89 from 2020. On Friday, Adams had broke Tufts' 50 breaststroke record and Shafi set a new school mark in the 500 freestyle.
Shafi was the runner-up in the 1000 free tonight, joined by freshman teammate
Dan Godino in the event who swam 9:30.41 for seventh-place. Adams led a 6th-7th-8th finish for Tufts in the 100 breaststroke with freshman
Jack Nussbaum (55.86) and junior
Darrien Johnsen (55.87) following Adams closely.
Tufts also had a second-place finish in the 200 medley relay tonight. Junior
Eric Lundgren, Adams, Sikka and graduate student
Peter LaBarge posted a 1:27.93 mark, 0.35 off the school record. The second 200 medley relay of sophomore
Jack Madden, Johnsen, Schreier and Euvrard timed 1:29.37 to join the first foursome in recording NCAA "B" marks tonight.
Lundgren was second individually in the 100 backstroke at 48.27 seconds. Madden jumped into third place with a strong finals performance of 49.03 seconds. Freshman
Oliver Grossman gave the Jumbos three in the top seven with his 49.49 time in the final.
The Jumbos put four in the top 15 of the 400 individual medley tonight. Sophomores
Connor Townson and
Nate Pfeffer led the group in fifth and sixth place with 4:01.10 and 4:01.21 times, respectively. Senior
Edwin Liang-Gilman was 13th (4:05.87) and junior
Brian Uribe took 16th (4:06.63).
LaBarge led Tufts in 11th overall for the 200 freestyle, touching in a 1:40.92 time. Senior
Eli Houlton was right behind him in 12th at 1:41.00.
Tufts trails Williams College heading into the final day of the meet tomorrow. The Jumbos have a 1276 score while the Ephs have earned 1431.5 points. Amherst College is the third-place team at a 781 score.
Others recording NCAA B qualifying marks today were Wilkinson in three-meter diving, Adams, Nussbaum and Johnsen for the 100 breaststroke and Lundgren and Madden in the 100 backstroke. The Jumbos have recorded over 20 NCAA B performances at the meet so far.
The conference championship meet closes tomorrow with preliminaries at 10 AM and finals at 5:30 PM for the 1650 freestyle, 100 freestyle, 200 breaststroke, 200 butterfly and 400 freestyle relay.
--JUMBOS--
