COMPLETE RESULTS
CAMBRIDGE, MA -- At last year's NCAA Championships the Engineers of MIT finished in fifth place overall, just one spot ahead of Williams. Today's matchup of the NCAA top-ten teams featured some fast swimming, and ultimately the Engineers were able to capture the win over Williams, 188-110.
Assistant coach Brogan Barr said, "We were excited to race against some good competition today. We weren't able to get the win, but there's a lot we'll be able to learn from this meet moving forward."
The Engineers set the tone early, finishing first and second in the 400 medley relay. The Ephs have enjoyed success on the national level in the medley relay events in recent years, finishing first in the 400 medley relay at the 2015 NCAA Championships and then first in the 200 medley relay at the 2016 NCAA Championships. MIT's impressive showing in the medley relay was only the second time Williams' medley has lost this season, and was their first loss to a Division 3 opponent.
A new addition to that MIT relay is the freshman Buoke Edskes, who swam the butterfly leg. Later on he would go on to win the 200 Butterfly in a time of 1:52.16.
Eph veteran Ben Lin squared off with Edskes in the 100 butterfly. Lin won that race and his time of 49.55 was just fast enough to reach the NCAA 'B' Standard. The 100 butterfly was Lin's third individual win of the day, as he also took home first place in both the 100 and 200 backstroke events.
Another Engineer freshman who had an impact today was David Morejon. First, he and Williams' Curtis Maher dueled in the 200 freestyle. Maher turned in the fastest 200 freestyle from any Eph so far this year with a 1:43.18, but Morejon was able to hit the wall first in 1:42.56.
Then Morejon went down to the wire with Eph first-year Andrew Trunsky in the 500 freestyle. Again Morejon found himself on the winning side of a touch-out, but William showed its depth by taking the second through fifth places behind him.
Trunsky earlier on had also impressively reached an NCAA 'B' Standard in the 1650 freestyle by finishing in 16:15.27. He won that event and led a Williams 1-2 sweep with junior Dan Needham.
Other Ephs were able to punch in some season-best performances, but MIT never trailed in the scoring. Among those Eph season-best times were Shahzad Mumtaz's 4:13.99 400 IM, Matt Zappe's 53.01 100 butterfly, Jamie Finnegan's 47.46 100 freestyle and Clayton Morikawa's 58.90 100 breaststroke.
Not to be overlooked was another strong diving performance from the tandem of Steven Kreuch and Andrew Lyness. Kreuch finished second on both boards and continues to dive well. Lyness finished fourth on both boards and has proven his value as a point-scorer.
The Ephs swim again tomorrow afternoon at Middlebury College.
