The men's swimming and diving team had another impressive performance last weekend at the MIT Invitational, where the Jumbos finished second out of seven teams. Despite not touching the wall first in any individual swimming event, the Jumbos' depth allowed them to score a total of 750.5 points in the meet, good enough to best NESCAC foes Colby and Bowdoin as well as non−conference competitor NYU for the runner−up spot.
The result in last weekend's meet was for the most part expected, as MIT has consistently been one of the top swimming programs in the nation. But while the team is content with the amount of points that it scored, the general consensus among the captains is that the most important aspect of the MIT meet was gaining valuable experience swimming in a big tournament format, regardless of the final score.
"We don't look at the scores as much, or at trying to get high in the standings, in a huge competition like this," senior quad−captain Matt Salzberg said. "We were just happy to have the opportunity to race against all of these great teams and to get some good performances in."
While no Jumbo finished in the top two in any individual swimming event, two of Tufts' relay teams finished in second. In the 200−yard freestyle relay, the team of juniors David Meyer, Gordon Jenkins and Andrew Altman with sophomore Owen Rood finished in 1:25.83 seconds, three seconds off the pace of the first−place MIT team. And in the 200−yard medley relay, the Tufts foursome of senior quad−captain Lawrence Chan, classmate Patrick Kinsella and sophomores E.J. Testa and Rood also finished in second behind the rival Engineers main quartet.
The meet allowed the team to show off its trademark depth — while the Jumbos had few standout performances, the multitude of points earned over the course of the meet's 21 events was emblematic of a very solid performance.
"One of the things that we always pride ourselves on is being a complete team from top to bottom," senior quad−captain Rob Delean said. "We may not have as much star power as some other teams in the conference, but overall we are strong, so that if one of us has a bad day, many other people can pick him up and carry the team."
Even against the tough competition of a powerhouse like MIT, the Jumbo divers had a dominating performance last weekend, led by senior quad−captain Rob Matera. Matera swept the two diving events in the meet, while junior Trevor Stack finished in third in both, picking up more valuable points for the Jumbos.
So far this season, the diving team has thoroughly dispatched all threats in each of its three meets. Matera has yet to drop a single event, in what may end up being a record−breaking season for the Tufts captain. The divers' dominance gives the rest of the team confidence that they will almost always have an advantage before they even step into the pool.
"We have a great relationship with our divers," Delean said. "I don't think that other teams hang out with their divers nearly as much as we do. They are one of the strengths of our team, and we don't even worry about them — we know that they're going to be great and perform well every time."
The MIT Invitational was the first large tournament in which the team has participated in this season. It achieved victories at home versus Colorado College and on the road in a tri−meet with Middlebury and Connecticut College. The MIT meet was a chance for the team to experience the intensity of a postseason competition with less pressure to succeed on the scoreboard. While the season is still young, if the Jumbos plan to make a run at unseating perennial power Williams from the top of the NESCAC, they must excel at the NESCAC meet in late February — a meet with a very similar, frenzied atmosphere.
"The atmosphere is something entirely different," Salzberg said. "When you're in an invitational, when they're 200 or 300 kids on deck, it's a different format, a little more challenging, very similar to conference meets. Dual meets are a high−energy sprint; this is a marathon."
The second−place finish at MIT wraps up the first portion of the team's season, and the Jumbos will now have over a month off before their next meet on Jan. 16 against Williams and Wesleyan. The team plans to spend 12 days in Fort Lauderdale over winter break, where it will take a trip to the Swimming Hall of Fame in between intense practices and workouts in preparation for the latter half of the season.
