A strong weekend of swimming and diving might not have resulted in a team victory, but head coach Bob Newcomb was impressed with his team’s performance at the Dartmouth Invitational.
“Overall, we had solid races,” Newcomb said. “At this point we are not looking to swim the fastest races so I was pleased with our performance.”
The UMass women’s team looked strong in the pool despite tallying only 643 points as host team, Dartmouth, won the event with 1,141 points. It was the dive team that carried the load for the Minutewomen, who finished with 643 total points, with divers finishing first, second and third in both the one-meter and three-meter events gained 108 of them.
Emma Roush and Katie Polk both had strong dives in the two-day event with Roush sweeping the one-meter and three-meter diving events. She took first in the one-meter with a personal-best score of 293.85 points, good enough for second-best in school history.
“(Roush) has been very consistent all season and is the leader of the dive team,” Newcomb said. “Emma is the one they have gone to time and again.”
Roush followed that performance with a first-place finish in the three-meter event with a score of 275.35. Polk, on the other hand, posted the seventh-best score in program history on the one-meter event, placing behind Roush with a score of 278.75.
Julia Jagannath finished third in the one-meter and second in the three-meter, while Polk came in second in the three-meter with Roush taking first..
On the swim side, Meriza Werenski had another strong outing, winning the 400-yard individual medley. Werenski was the only Minutewomen swimmer to capture a first place finish on the final day. However, UMass did have three swimmers place in the top 10 in the 100-yard butterfly. Cassie Sosnovich led the way placing third with a time of 58.56 seconds. Jocelyn Yuen and Rachel Grant placed sixth and seventh, respectively.
“We had a good assortment of strong races,” Newcomb said. “It was a really tough week of practice with a lot of swimming so the girls were tired but I think we had a lot of solid races.”
Sydney Connor took home sixth in the 100-yard breaststroke. In the later session, Steph Campo and Kate Orr finished fifth and sixth in the 1,650-yard freestyle. They placed just two seconds apart from each other in the race.
“We are doing what we need to do,” Newcomb said. “We have excellent competition coming up.”
Strong Outing from Bomprezzi highlights weekend
A constant for the Minutemen this season has been Alessandro Bomprezzi, and that did not change over the weekend at the Dartmouth Invitational.
Bomprezzi finished first and set a pool record in the 1,650-yard freestyle with a time of 15 minutes, 52.06 seconds. That time broke UMass alum Chris Inglis’ previous Upper Valley Aquatic Center record time of 15:56.02. He was the lone Minutemen to win an event on the final day.
However, UMass did place 36 swimmers among the top 10 positions throughout the day. James Allen placed third in the 400-yard individual medley, while Ben Sloan finished fourth in the 100-yard fly with a time of 52.17.
The Minutemen had four top ten finishers in the 200-yard freestyle. Owen Wright took fourth, Eric Pauls took seventh and Kyle Vieira finished eighth while Allen tied for ninth. That event gave UMass 46 points, but it was not enough to get by Boston College, who won the two-day meet with 1,272 points. UMass finished with a total of 852 points.
Wright added a third place finish in the 100-yard breaststroke. On the boards, Robert Barry took home a third place finish on the one-meter dive and Trent Kindvall finished third in the three-meter.
The Minutemen and women return home Saturday to face Atlantic 10 opponent Fordham on Senior Day.
Tyler Fiedler can be reached by email [email protected] and followed on Twitter @Tyler_Fiedler.
