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The Tufts Daily
Where you read it first | Friday, March 29, 2024

Tufts trounces Wheaton in last dual meet of season

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All-around performances in the pool gave the Jumbos an easy victory.

The men’s swimming and diving team won its final head-to-head meet of the season in dominant fashion Saturday afternoon, beating Wheaton College 177-107. The win brings the team’s record to 3-3 in head-to-head matchups on the season as the Jumbos set their sights on next month’s NESCAC championships.

“Wheaton is an up-and-coming team, and they always push us to swim our best,” junior tri-captain Michael Winget said. “We never take them lightly, and I believe that translated into the guys swimming well.”

Tufts won 10 of the meet’s 16 events, and would have won 14 and racked up a higher point total if the team had not exhibitioned, or competed while ceding all points, in five events, including both diving events.

“Even though the score wasn't close, everyone on both teams was on their feet the whole time cheering for each other, so it was an incredible atmosphere,” first-year James McElduff said. “It was an opportunity for guys tapering to see where they were at with their times and for the guys not tapering to have fun swimming different events than we normally do.”

Winget and fellow junior tri-captain Cam Simko helped lead the Jumbos at Wheaton, winning a pair of events each. Winget led off the meet swimming the opening backstroke leg of the first-place 200 medley “A” relay for Tufts, in which he was followed by first-year Morgan Ciliv, sophomore William Metcalfe and first-year Panos Skoufalos. He then went on to win both the 50 and the 500 freestyle, with Tufts taking the top four finishes in the 500 freestyle.

Simko finished first in the 100 butterfly and the 100 freestyle before going on to shave his seed time of 2:02.87 to 2:01.08 in the 200 individual medley. He would have won that race as well if Tufts had not been exhibitioning all their events at that point in the meet.

Ciliv and junior Anthony DeBenedetto were just as prolific for the Jumbos. DeBenedetto won the 1650 freestyle, where Tufts also had the top four finishes, and then the 100 backstroke.

Ciliv won both the 50 and 100 breaststroke events and was backed up by second-place finishes in both events from sophomores Jasper Du and Michael Lordi, respectively.

First-years Zachary Wallace and James McElduff also added wins as the Jumbo first-years on Saturday gave the team a reason to be excited for the future.

Wallace out-touched Wheaton’s Ross Johnston by 0.38 seconds in a very close 200 freestyle race to follow up a two-win performance against Boston College on Tuesday.

Ciliv, Wallace and McElduff are three of the 10 talented Tufts first-years that were recently named to the 24-man NESCAC squad. Twenty-two of the 24 members have been chosen already for next month’s championships, with the final two spots open for any swimmers that distinguish themselves in the next couple weeks.

“I'm so honored and excited to be part of the NESCAC team,” said Wallace. “I just hope to swim my best. And for so many freshman to be named to the 'CAC team this year tells everyone what kind of team we have approaching in the future. A young, talented team is a good sign.”

Wallace and McElduff also explained that as first-years they have improved rapidly due to a more rigorous training regimen than they had in high school, one that includes weight lifting and builds a strong sense of camaraderie among the teammates.

With just under a month until the conference championship meet, NESCACs is at the forefront of the team’s focus right now, even though it still has one more meet before then — next weekend’s Middlebury Invitational. The Invitational will be the last event of the season for 20 members of the Tufts team who will begin to taper this week.

“In practice, the team, as well as myself, are all working on fine-tuning our races,” Winget said. “At this point in the season, our endurance and fitness is what it will be, so now we are really trying to focus on the little things so we can race our best at the end of the year.”

“We’re doing a lot of speed-orientated workouts now too,” Wallace added. “For technique, everyone on the team has their own things that they need to work on, but as a whole, our starts and relay take-offs will be practiced a lot up until NESCACs.”

While it is difficult to predict future results, past years indicate that Tufts will most likely be competing against Conn. College for third at NESCACs behind swimming powerhouses and perennial first- and second-place finishers Williams and Amherst.

“We only have about four more weeks until our season is over,” McElduff said, “so we're all putting in our best effort to make sure that the end of the season is how we want it to be.”