Men swimmers remain undefeated as NESCAC competition begins

The men's swimming and diving team remained perfect on Saturday, beating the Bowdoin Polar Bears 162-117 after trouncing Babson earlier in the week.

Saturday's meet proved the toughest of the season so far and marked the beginning of the squad's in-conference competition.

On Thursday, the team easily beat the Beavers from Babson, who came into the meet with a 5-1 record. The final score was 132-84, after the Jumbos allowed Babson to win only three events in Tufts' home pool.

"Babson's always tough," senior tri-captain Peter Berkowitz said. "The meet is always a good measure to see how the season will go, and we did well."

Saturday's home meet was a bit more competitive, as it forced the Jumbos to prove that their out-of-conference success was not a fluke.

Both diving competitions went Tufts way, but the usually dominant relay teams split two competitions.

"The divers are really coming along," junior Kaili Mauricio said.

The 1,000-yard freestyle and the 100-yard backstroke proved that Tufts was still the strong team it had been during its first three meets. The first three positions in both events went to Tufts. Senior tri-captain Ed Edson won the 1,000-yard freestyle with a time of 10:28.89, alone earning nine points for his team. Freshman Jonathon Godsey (10:37.38) and junior Jacob Gamerman (11:37.11) were next. In the 100 backstroke, sophomore Richard Halpert took the first spot (56.70) with juniors Mauricio (57.25) and Aeric Solow (57.74) close behind _ earning a total of 16 points for the Jumbos.

Tufts earned another 16 points after a Jumbo-sweep of the 100 breaststroke. Sophomore Michael Rochette won with a time of 1:03.32, beating out teammates Ryan Lahey (1:04.07) and Greg Schmidt (1:06.06).

Junior Tyler Duckworth once again was man to beat in the 200 breaststroke, as he dominated competition in his victory. The closest Polar Bear was more than 20 seconds behind when Duckworth grabbed the wall at 2:15.77.

"I'm trying new techniques in my stroke but now everything's coming together really nicely and my times and dropping to where I want them to be," Duckworth said.

The most competitive and entertaining event of the day came in the 100 freestyle. Bowdoin junior Mike Long and Tufts sophomore Alex Turner were separated by a mere .02 seconds in the end, with Long coming out on top and bringing a much needed nine points the Polar Bear way.

Bowdoin was led by freshman stand-out Roger Burleigh, the winner of three events for the Polar Bears, who single-handedly earned his team 27 points. He was the victor in both the 100 (54.16) and 200 butterfly (1:59.78) and the 200 individual medley (2:09.92).

This was the Polar Bears third straight loss, dropping them to 1-3.

"It was a good way to end our first half of the season and it was a good indicator of where we are and where we need to go," Duckworth said.

The confident Jumbos now go into winter break with a 4-0 record, poised to take on the rest of their NESCAC foes when they return. But first, the team will take its annual winter training trip to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, where they will train, bond and compete in the Ed Kennedy Relay Meet/Long Course on Dec. 31.

"The team's looking forward to going down to Florida and training and coming back second semester and doing really well," Berkowitz said.

The team's next real meet will come on Saturday, Jan. 18 when it will travel to Middletown, Connecticut for a bout against Wesleyan University.