The men's swimming and diving team posted a strong performance against a deep field at this weekend's MIT Invitational, besting two squads - NESCAC foes Colby and Bowdoin - who finished in the top 35 at 2007 Nationals and giving a third a run for its money.
Tufts finished second at the meet with 1046.5 points, just behind the host Engineers, who came away with the win behind a 1082.5-point effort. The Jumbos were pleased with their performance against MIT, which finished in 11th place at Nationals last season and returned three All-Americans to this season's squad.
"I think that we did really well," senior tri-captain Jeff Goldberg said. "MIT actually starts training in September, and we start in November because of NESCAC regulations. They have been training for two more months than we have and were rested while we have been training straight through the last few weeks. I think we are right on target."
Sophomore diver Rob Matera delivered perhaps the best performance for the Jumbos, winning both of his diving events. On Saturday, he followed up a 3-meter victory by cruising to first place in the 1-meter dive, with freshman teammate Trevor Stack coming in second.
Tufts got second-place finishes in all of the relay events on the day. Juniors Ben Moskowitz and Andrew Shields teamed up with sophomore Lawrence Chan and freshman Matthew Glenn in the 200-yard medley relay, while freshmen Joe Lessard, David Meyer and Chris Vorlicek joined sophomore Kyle Jones to lead the Jumbos to second in the 800 freestyle relay. Tufts also placed teams in both second and third in the 400 freestyle relay. In all three events, the Jumbos finished behind teams from MIT.
Tufts underclassmen led the way in the invitational, particularly on the second day. Lessard was impressive in swimming to a second-place finish in the 1,650-yard free and also came in just behind classmate Meyer for sixth place in the 200 freestyle. In addition, Vorlicek took second in both the 500 freestyle and the 400 IM. Glenn, meanwhile, gave MIT's All-American sophomore Jeff Zhou a race in the 100-yard backstroke, losing by just 47 hundredths of a second.
"It is really important for everyone to do really well at the onset," Moskowitz said. "The freshmen and sophomores are both great classes, and they have great natural talent. And with the leadership of the older guys, they focus in practice and get the most out of it that they can. Under the eye of the upperclassmen, the freshmen and sophomores are really taking that into their swims."
The only swimming event that saw a Jumbo finish at the top above an Engineer was the 200-yard backstroke, where Jones won in 2:01.45 to edge freshman teammate Andrew Altman by two hundredths of a second.
On Friday, the teams went through six events and the Jumbos came through with strong performances. Tufts ended the day in second place out of the six teams in the invitational with 310 points, 52 points behind MIT. The Jumbos proved that they will be a forced to be reckoned within the NESCAC, establishing early leads over conference foes Colby and Bowdoin.
"Going to an invitational meet is always exciting," Moskowitz said. "You get to see a lot of different teams, and some of them train a lot differently than we do. And with the NESCAC schools, we get to see who will be up against in the coming weeks. We got some really fast swims from our guys, and we are in a great place now. We are thinking it is only going to get better with the work we put in the next few weeks."
The Jumbos top performance of the day came from Matera, who bested Engineers freshman Carson Darling in the 3-meter dive by almost 100 points to finish with 436.10 points. Tufts also came away with third, fourth and fifth place showings in the event, garnering 65 points.
In four of the other five events, the Jumbos had a second place finisher. But unfortunately for Tufts, MIT finished first in all of these events to help build its early lead. The Jumbos worst event of the day was the 50-yard freestyle, in which MIT came away with the top three places. Meyer finished in fourth, less than a second behind MIT freshman Laurent Charpentier.
Tufts started the day off well, placing its A team in second in the 200 freestyle relay as well as its B team in fourth to earn 64 points. The Jumbos' top team was comprised of the freshman trio of Altman, Meyer, and Gordy Jenkins along with Shields. The Jumbos also saw their top two teams in the 400-yard medley come in second and fourth as well, with the group of Meyer, Glenn and sophomores Chan and Robert Delean leading the charge for Tufts.
There were also a number of strong individual performances from underclassmen on the day. Vorlicek finished second in the 500 freestyle, while Lessard came in fifth place. Chan finished four hundredths of a second behind Engineer sophomore Rastislav Racz in the 200 IM, coming up just short on his strong finishing kick.
Although the Jumbos will not be able to exact revenge on MIT until the end of January, they will look ahead to next weekend's matchup with the Brandeis Judges, who placed third in the invitational.
"I think that we will carry in the momentum of this weekend," Goldberg said. "I think across the board we had fantastic swims for only having trained a couple weeks and being home for Thanksgiving. We will pretty much ride the momentum of this weekend and take that in. It should be good."
