At this weekend's MIT Invitational, the men's swimming and diving team proved that it can keep up with the likes of bigger fish.
While the Jumbos placed third out of seven teams at the meet, they can still take pride in the final result. Although the host Engineers captured first place by a fairly comfortable margin, the Jumbos proved they could hang with the meet's top three, finishing just 127 points behind second-place NYU with a tally of 740.83 and holding off fourth-place Brandeis by 396.83.
"We've been training for about one month now, as opposed to those other two teams, who have been training for two months," coach Adam Hoyt said. "Those two teams were very well-rested. It was a focus meet for them, but for us we were just looking to put forth some of our best races."
The Jumbos did just that, shining especially bright in the relay events. The 200-yard freestyle relay team of sophomores David Meyer and Gordy Jenkins, senior Andrew Shields and freshman Owen Rood finished in second place, as did the 400-yard freestyle relay team of Meyer, Shields, Rood and sophomore Andrew Altman. Meyer and Altman also made up half of the 800-yard freestyle team, combining with sophomore Joe Lessard and freshman Alex Strittmatter to finish second behind NYU's A squad.
"The 800-freestyle relay was one of the best races I have ever seen," senior quad-captain James Longhurst said. "Our team was right behind MIT going into the last leg and we ended up winning by just over half a second ... Everyone on that relay put up incredible times."
"Those were some of the fastest relay times we've had in five years, aside from the NESCAC Championships or the NCAAs," Hoyt said.
Featured in the 200 and the 400 was freshman sprinter Rood, who anchors the relay teams. Rood posted the fastest splits for both relays and the third-fastest split of all of the swimmers in the 200. Rood also placed third in his individual event, the 50-yard freestyle.
"He's very talented," Hoyt said. "He's a good contributor, especially on our relays."
The Jumbo divers stayed true to their usual successes, with junior Rob Matera placing first in both the 1- and 3-meter dives while sophomore Trevor Stack placed third in the 3-meter and second in the 1-meter. All four Tufts divers placed in the top nine in both events, earning 122 of Tufts' total 740.83 points.
"Our divers outscored all six of the other diving teams at the meet," Hoyt said. "Going into every meet we know that we've got our core of divers who can compete against anyone, and we look to our divers to perform well in every meet and they never let us down."
Despite all of the reasons to pat themselves on the back, the Jumbos are not ready to let up just yet. After winter break, Tufts will look to its rematch with MIT, as well as meets against BC, BU and NESCAC rival Williams. With five competitions crammed into January -- some back-to-back and others merely three days apart -- the month could either make or break the Jumbos' season.
"Going into the break and heading off to our training trip we will focus on keeping our intensity up, focusing on the techniques we need to swim fast and making sure that we stay positive so that this season can be our best season ever," senior quad-captain Ben Moskowitz said.
"Even though everyone swam really fast this weekend, there is always room for improvement," Longhurst said. "We still have to work on the little things like starts, turns and breathing patterns. It is still the first half of the season so we have a lot of time to get everything down before NESCACs, and we are so fast right now that no one knows how fast we will go when we have perfect races."
