Men's team making a splash as season continues

The men's swimming and diving team cut the holiday break short and went back to its winning ways in style, taking first in all three of their vacation meets and in Saturday's competition with Trinity. The Jumbos' dual-meet record now stands at a perfect 7-0.

Vacation adversaries Brandeis, MIT and Wesleyan -- in addition to Trinity on Saturday -- were all overmatched. The Jumbos showed prominence in each event, looking sharp as they marched on with their undefeated season.

Tufts dropped the Bantams in a 179-113 blowout, extending its unbeaten streak in league competition to almost two years.

This season's victory over swimming powerhouse MIT was especially gratifying for the Jumbos; last season, the Engineers were the only smudge on an otherwise perfect campaign, edging Tufts by a mere six points. Last Sunday the Jumbo victory was far more telling as they took the contest by the large margin of 175-116.

Tufts opened the contest by placing second in the 200 meter medley relay. The foursome -- made up of freshman Sloan Harris, sophomores Jon Godsey and Jason Kapit, and junior Michael Rochette- finished with a time of 1:38.35.

"MIT was a huge win because they had beaten us last year and no one on the team seemed like they were going to let that happen again," Harris said. "This team's mentality definitely feeds off itself."

Harris also finished second in the 800 meter freestyle relay and 200 meter freestyle events. In the 200 meter race, Harris pulled up to the wall just .37 seconds after sophomore teammate Brett Baker.

Baker would continue on with a spectacular day, taking first in the 100 free and swimming as part of the 800 meter freestyle relay team. Kapit contributed on his part as well, winning the 200 butterfly with a time of 1:58.38.

The previous day, the Jumbos handedly defeated Wesleyan 161.5-117.5. Once again, the 200 medley relay team of Harris, Baker, Godsey, and Rochette got things started for Tufts, touching home in 1:39.54 to earn first place.

Harris and Baker also won the 200 free and Baker finished second in the 100 backstroke, second only to Tufts senior tri-captain Jamie Meyers. Myers won in 55.62 seconds. Fellow senior tri-captain Aeric Solow won the 100 breaststroke, and junior Seth Baron took the 200 butterfly with a time of 1:58.73.

Despite its success, the team is trying to remain focused.

"We still need to focus on the grand scheme of things," Baron said. "We can't let [single wins] detract from the whole picture."

Sophomore swimmer Steve Ward agreed.

"We just take it one meet at a time. We still have three weeks until our last meet at Williams, and we can't look that far ahead," he said. "It does give us momentum, however."

Still, there have been many reasons for excitement, and even the swimmers admit that some of those must be acknowledged.

"We did step it up at MIT. Some guys were even going several seconds faster in the same events than they did the day before at Wesleyan," Baron added. "To me, that was the most exciting part of the whole weekend, seeing our team go so much faster despite all the fatigue."

Baron reached a personal high in last Sunday's meet versus MIT and Brandeis, gaining his fastest ever time in the 500 freestyle, clocking in at 4:54.53.

In the Trinity meet, Baron took first place in the 1000 yard freestyle with a time of 10:18.05, followed by Ward with a time of 10:22.16.

In diving, the Jumbos continued to dominate the opposition. Against Trinity, graduate student Connell Cloyd won the three meter event, and sophomore Todd Putnam finished second in the one meter event, with Cloyd coming in third.

Against MIT and Brandeis, Cloyd and Putnam finished 1-2 out of all three schools in both the one and three meter events. Putnam won the one meter event, with Cloyd finishing second against Wesleyan.