The Massachusetts swim and dive teams were both defeated at the annual Tate Ramsden Invitational hosted by Dartmouth College in New Hampshire. The invitational took place over two days on Friday and Saturday, and the Minutemen (0-4) fell to the Dartmouth men (2-8, 0-4 Ivy League) 249-82 while the Minutewomen (0-7) lost to the Dartmouth women (4-7, 1-3 Ivy) 258-78 and Northeastern (5-2) 256-79.
“It went really well … this time of year we’re pretty beaten up from training,” men’s head coach Sean Clark said. “We tried to mix our lineup a little bit to add some spice to our mid-winter blues. We ended up swimming pretty fast overall even though the score doesn’t reflect that.”
Among both teams, UMass totaled 16 top three finishes over the two days of competition. For the Minutemen, Andrew Bell was the bright spot. He continued a dominant season on the boards with first place finishes in the one-meter with a 326.45 finals score and three-meter with a 401.50 finals score.
Freshman Chase Keeler, coming off a strong performance with two first place finishes against Bryant, put up another great meet performance with a second and third place finish against Dartmouth. Keeler earned the silver in the 100 backstroke and the bronze in the 200 breaststroke.
Another strong performance for the Minutemen was Sammy Quigg coming in second place in the 200-yard IM with a 1:54.31 time. Quigg also helped lead two second place finishes in relay events. The team of Quigg, Aidan Shepston, Grant Beebe and Beau Bengston finished second in the 200 yard freestyle relay. Quigg, Shepston, Juan Montori and Liam Rayson combined for a second-place finish in the 400-yard freestyle relay as well.
“[Keeler], one of our key freshmen, had three lifetime bests and is really setting himself up for a big A-10s,” Clark said. “And another freshman Nate Derby … he put up a couple nice lifetime bests and he’s been having a great season. [Bell] had a rough day on the first board that he did, the one-meter, a little bit under the weather but he rebounded really well.”
The Minutewomen also had several top three finishes during the meet. Freshman Maria Grishaeva earned a second-place finish in the 200-yard breaststroke with a 2:19.30 time. The Virginia native also finished third in the 400-yard IM. Senior Anna Kwon earned the silver in the 200-yard butterfly with a 2:06.01 time. Freshman Elizabeth Lahmann finished third in the 500-yard freestyle.
“I thought our team did really well this weekend, we signed up for some mostly off events this weekend, give them a little break from their main events and have a little fun, race something different,” women’s head coach Maiya Otsuka said. “For some it was a good chance to gain perspective in other events. So they did really well with it, we had fun.”
With one month remaining in the season, both teams begin to sharpen their focus on preparing for the Atlantic 10 championships that begin Feb. 19 in Virginia. Both teams have two final regular season meets before the championships, Jan. 25 at Fairfield, and Feb. 1 hosting Fordham on Senior Day.
“This past month and month leading into the A-10 we’ve been through intersession and we’re doing doubles every day, they’re grinding hard,” Otsuka said. “On the other side of it, we’ll keep grinding a little bit this week and into the following week, but we’ll start doing less practices, give their bodies a little bit more rest. From there when we start school, we’ll start to back off even more so as we prepare for A-10s.”
Both teams will return to the pool on Saturday Jan. 25 to take on Fairfield University. The meet is scheduled to begin at 1 p.m.
Marco Lopez can be reached at [email protected].