The meet was held at Fordham University in the Messmore Aquatic Center and was the final meet of the regular season for UMass.
The Minutemen swimmers set the tempo early, as Trevor Ziegler, Peter Sacco, Christopher Howard and Timmy O’Neill combined to win the 200-yard medley relay with a time of 1:34.63.
Howard, the reigning Atlantic 10 player of the week, was the star in the pool on Saturday for the Minutemen. He ripped off a pair of victories in the 50 and 100-yard freestyles with impressive times of 21.33 and 46.96, respectively. In addition, he swam on the second place 200-yard freestyle relay team.
Individual accomplishments for the Minutemen didn’t stop at that, Beau Garufi won the 200-yard breaststroke (2:10.48) and was second in the 100-yard breaststroke (1:00.74), and freshman Chris Inglis continued his personal hot streak, winning both the 200-yard butterfly (1:55.95) and the 200-yard IM (1:59.49). Inglis won the A-10 rookie of the week award last week thanks to his school record time in the 1000-yard freestyle last weekend at the Dartmouth Invitational.
Meanwhile, Adam Duffield had himself a career day on the diving board. The senior took home both the one and three-meter dives and set personal records in each event, with scores of 290.10 and 307.80, respectively.
Senior diving partner John Clark finished directly behind his teammate in both the one (271.40) and three-meter (293.33) dives.
The Minutewomen swimmers were led by Jessica Starosielec, who won the 100-yard breaststroke (1:08.05), came in second in the 200-yard breaststroke (2:25.30) and helped her team of Jennifer Corriveau, Kaitie English and Amina Meho to a second place finish in the 200-yard medley relay (1:50.37).
Meghan Nowak finished right behind Starosielec in both the 100 and 200-yard breaststrokes, with times of 2:25.48 and 1:09.03, respectively. Anna Cavanaugh had a strong showing, finishing second in the 200-yard freestyle (1:55.40), third in the 100-yard freestyle (54.39) and fourth in the 100-yard butterfly (1:02.45).
Molly Elkins started for the diving team on the women’s side. She finished second in the one-meter dive and third in the three-meter dive. Her one-meter score was 226.65 and she finished with a score of 236.85 in the three-meter dive.
The meet in Fordham was the final dual-meet before the Atlantic 10 Championships. Both the men’s and women’s teams have been picked as favorites to win the championships.
Next up on the schedule will be the NCAA Diving Qualifiers on Feb. 11. Two weeks later will be the A-10 Championships, which will be held in Buffalo, N.Y.
The men’s team has built a dynasty over the past 14 years, winning an impressive 12 conference championships under UMass coach Russ Yarworth.
The women are looking to win their first A-10 title under coach Bob Newcomb since the 2000-01 season.
Jackson Alexander can be reached at [email protected].
