Massachusetts senior swimmer Owen Wright went into Saturday’s meet against conference foe Fordham (3-6, 0-1 Atlantic 10) hungry to prove himself in his final meet in Rogers Pool. He did just that, leaving the final home race of his career as a Minuteman in possession of two of the pool’s records, one having stood for 19 years.Wright’s 20.42-second swim of the 50-meter freestyle broke a record at Rogers Pool which had stood for 19 years. Wright also broke the pool record in the 100 meter freestyle with a swim of 44.92 seconds in UMass’ 211-87 rout of Fordham.
“That was the last chance I had to get those two records, so I had to really race my best,” said Wright. “I’m just really happy right now, just super happy.”
Fellow senior Chris DiGiacomo added a record of his own, swimming 1:50.47 in the 200-meter individual medley, while senior Oli Wyeth set the pool’s 500-meter freestyle record with a 4:33.14 swim.
“Our senior class are just tremendous representatives of the program,” UMass coach Russ Yarworth said. “We know they’ve worked pretty hard this week in practice, and they still put in some pretty good times.”
The team realizes that they still have unfinished business to attend to at the A-10 Championships in a little over two weeks.
“They’re focused on the whole season,” said Yarworth, “and the whole season is ending at the A-10s. We want to make sure that we are doing all the right things. Today we showed that we are racing well and that our training had paid off, the kids are confident.”
Minutewomen fall on senior day
Saturday’s record setting performances didn’t stop with the Minutemen, as the Minutewomen kicked off the meet in a big way with senior diver Emma Roush posting a pool-record 344.33 in the 3-meter dive.
The early success was not enough for the Minutewomen (2-3, 1-1 A-10) to knock off the visiting Rams (9-2, 1-0 A-10), falling to their A-10 opponents 171.5-128.5.
Junior Ansley Baker impressed, racking up three first place finishes with victories in the 50- and 100-meter freestyle races and another in the 100-meter breaststroke.
“I think it was a good meet overall,” said Baker. “We had a few tough weeks of training, so we really just wanted to come in here and race.”
Baker’s efforts did not go unnoticed by her coach Bob Newcome, who called her a leader after the meet.
The dual-meet marks the official end to the regular season and beginning of preparations for the A-10 Championships in two and a half weeks at the SPIRE Institute in Geneva, Ohio.
Noah Bortle can be reached at nbortle@umass.edu and followed on Twitter @noah_bortle.
