Jumbos split season-opening tri-meet

The men’s swimming and diving season is underway after the Jumbos kicked off their 2014-2015 campaign by splitting their opening tri-meet on Nov. 22. Tufts easily handled NESCAC rival Middlebury 191-103, but fell in a close battle with Keene St. 162-136.

The split result marks the first time since 2011 that the team did not sweep its season-opening tri-meet, though this was also the first time that Tufts has faced Keene St. in the season-opener. The Keene St. Owls won eight of the 16 events, while the Jumbos took seven and the host Panthers captured just one.

“The team performed very well last weekend,” junior tri-captain Michael Winget said. “There’s always a lot of pressure to perform at the first dual meet, and I think the team really rose to the occasion. There were some fast swims by a number of people, and I think as a team we put ourselves in a good position to have success later on in the season.”

Winget led the team at Middlebury, winning both the 100-yard and 200-yard backstroke events, in 51.68 and in 1:55.84 respectively, and leading off for the first-place Jumbo 200-yard medley relay. Winget is also the school record holder in the 100 and 200 backstroke, and last season he represented Tufts at the NCAA championships in both events.

Tufts started off the meet with the win in the medley relay, which featured Winget swimming backstroke, first-year Morgan Ciliv swimming breaststroke, sophomore William Metcalfe swimming butterfly, and junior Harry Wood swimming freestyle.

Sophomore Jasper Du won his first collegiate event in the 200 breaststroke, taking first with a time of 2:15.58 after teammate Ciliv, who would have finished in 2:12.62, but was disqualified for flinching on the starting block.

Metcalfe, who swam in the 100 and 200 butterfly at last season’s NCAA championships and broke the school record in the 200, took first in the 100 fly with a time of 52.25 for the Jumbos’ final swimming win.

Rounding out the team’s seven wins was sophomore Matt Rohrer, who captured first in both the one- and three-meter diving events. Rohrer, like Winget and Metcalfe, was an NCAA qualifier last season and scored 14 points for the Jumbos at the NCAA meet. He is taking his place as the successor to two-time NCAA one-meter diving champion and seven-time All-American Johann Schmidt (LA ’14), continuing the Jumbo tradition of dominance on the boards.

“We have had a slow start to the season because of illness and other factors, but I think that everyone is starting to get into a really solid rhythm, and I love the energy that I'm seeing on the boards from everyone,” Rohrer said of the Jumbo divers. “Everyone has already been doing awesome dives, and I've seen a lot of improvement from everyone, so I'm really stoked for what the season is going to bring.”

Part of the reason the team came up short against Keene St. may have been Tufts’ disadvantage in training. As per NESCAC rules, the Jumbos only began swimming with their coaches Nov. 1, while the Owls started in October.

But even at this early stage in their training, many Jumbos have shown promising signs, and several first-year students have stepped up to score points for the team. After swimming a leg of the first-place medley relay, Ciliv came close to capturing his first individual win in the 200 breast, and he will likely accomplish that feat this season after becoming more comfortable on the starting block. Ciliv also took third in the 100 breastroke. First-year Panos Skoufalos, meanwhile, swam the third leg of the second-place 200 freestyle relay. This relay featured Winget leading off and Wood anchoring like the medley relay, with junior tri-captain Cam Simko swimming the second leg.

“This was the [first-year students'] first collegiate meet ever, so this meet was just as much about getting a feel for dual meets as it was about swimming fast,” Winget said. “I was particularly pleased with the [first-year students'] performance on relays. They really stepped up when we needed them, so I think the meet gave everyone something to work on as the season moves forward.”

In another strong performance, junior Anthony DeBenedetto narrowly missed out on winning the 200 butterfly, finishing just 0.33 seconds behind the winning pace and a few seconds ahead of sophomore teammate Gus Simms’ third-place finish. DeBenedetto will likely be able to improve on that 1:56.75 time over the course of this season as his careerbest, which is also a former school record, was a 1:51.08 that he swam his rookie season.

The Jumbos will swim in their final meet of the semester this weekend when they head down to Cambridge to compete in the MIT Invitational.

“MIT Invite is really fun because it's our first chance of the season to compete with the MIT divers, who we practice with every day, so I think our goal as a team is to just have a good time and try to get zone-qualifying scores across the board,” Rohrer said. “It's really funny being at the invite because Tufts and MIT are so close, and a lot of the other schools get intimidated by the fact that we are so comfortable with each other. I think it throws them off and makes us feel better about ourselves. Having that little confidence advantage really goes a long way.”

“For MIT [Invitational], as a team, we want to have some fast swims,” Winget said. “Outside of NESCACs this is our only other meet where we will wear racing suits, so it’s a big goal of ours to swim fast. We want to swim fast times going into training trip, so we know where we are in our training.”

Tufts will face strong competition as usual at MIT, competition that may be even stronger than its NESCAC rivals. Still, the Jumbos hope to continue to incorporate their young swimmers, collectively get more comfortable in the pool and bring home some strong finishes this weekend in preparation for their annual winter break training trip.