WORCESTER Mass. – The Wheaton College (Mass.) men's swimming and diving team was overcome by host Worcester Polytechnic Institute, 140.5-136.5, this evening at the WPI Sports & Recreation Center in Worcester, Mass.
The Lyons drop to 2-5 on the season, while the Engineers improve to 6-7.
WPI won 10 of 16 events in the meet with the teams splitting the relays.
Junior Andrew Tran (Milton, Mass.) tallied a team-high 17 points to lead Wheaton. He placed first in the 100-yard breaststroke with a time of 1:01.62 and added runner-up efforts in both the 200-yard breaststroke (2:15.91) and the 200-yard individual medley (2:05.19). Senior Sean Hill (Ellsworth, Maine) touched the wall first in the 500-yard freestyle with a mark of 4:56.24 and added a second-place showing in the 200-yard butterfly (2:06.64) and was fourth in the 200-yard freestyle.
Junior Gavin Cullinan (Cumming, Ga.) picked up a victory in the 200-yard freestyle with a time of 1:46.67, while finishing second in the 200-yard backstroke with a clip of 1:58.02 for the Lyons, while sophomore Kevin Rice (Vienna, Va.) matched him with 13 points behind a first-place effort in the 200-yard individual medley with a time of 2:03.72 and a second-place finish in the 1000-yard freestyle after recording a time of 10:12.99.
Senior Colton LaBrecque (Vernon, Conn.) won the 100-yard butterfly for Wheaton after clocking in at 54.79 and added a fourth-place finish in the 100-yard breaststroke, while junior Brian Hixson (Scituate, Mass.) topped the first in the 50-yard freestyle with a sprint of 21.79.
The Lyons closed the meet with a winning time in the 400-yard freestyle relay. Senior Anton Lopez (Oakland, Calif.), Cullinan, Hill and junior Will Larson (Iowa City, Iowa) put together a winning mark of 3:12.04.
First year Tom Fitzgerald (East Longmeadow, Mass.), senior Aidan Greenfield (Northport, N.Y.) and sophomore Sean Tesoro (Reading, Mass.) each scored a pair of wins for the Engineers. Fitzgerald dominated the diving for the home team with scores of 231.08 on the one-meter board and 241.25 on the three-meter board. Greenfield showed some range and diversity in the pool with a top time of 10:00.45 in the 1000-yard freestyle and a clip of 1:57.25 in the 200-yard backstroke. Tesoro owned the freestyle sprint events for WPI, touching the wall first in the 50 with a time of 21.79 in addition to a triumph in the 100-yard race with a mark of 47.21.
Senior Eli Budde (Sykesville, Md.), junior Christopher Smith (Northbridge, Mass.) and sophomore Patrick Tirch (Poughkeepsie, N.Y.) all contributed with a winning race for the Engineers. Budde won the 200-yard breaststroke with a time of 2:15.63, while Smith swam to victory in the 100-yard backstroke (53.38). Tirch boasted the best time in the 200-yard butterfly at 2:04.18.
WPI won the first event of the night with a time of 1:35.63 in the 200-yard medley relay. First year Angad Ahluwalia (Attleboro, Mass.) led off the race in the backstroke, before yielding to senior Jack Duryea's (Sag Harbor, N.Y.) breaststroke. Smith swam the butterfly leg, followed by sophomore Nolan Schlessman's (Sudbury, Mass.) freestyle anchor.
Wheaton returns to the pool on Saturday, January 25 when it travels to Hartford, Conn. to take on Trinity College at 1:00 p.m., while the Engineers head to Bristol, R.I. for Roger Williams University's Menck Invitational at 4:00 p.m. on January 24.
