WPI
The WPI men’s and women’s swimming and diving teams each saw a fourth place finish on the opening night of the 2016 NEWMAC Championships being hosted by MIT. Both genders end the night tied for fourth overall with 77 and 50 points, respectively.
The A squad was as high as second place at various times in their heat of the women’s 800 freestyle relay. Sophomore Jenny Day (Chelmsford, MA), sophomore Emily Matsco (Windham, NH), junior Eva Childers (Henniker, NH) and junior Emily Martin (Penfield, NY) collaborated to turn in a time of 7:42.67, just .13 off their record-setting pace at last year’s event. Sophomore Thea Reymann (Toms River, NJ), sophomore Allysa Grant (Framingham, MA), sophomore Jamie Freud (Amherst, NH) and senior Amanda Konieczny (West Springfield, MA) teamed up to post the 12th quickest time of the event (8:04.49) in the opening heat.
Sophomore Randy Melanson (Attleboro, MA) delivered a fourth-place finish in the men’s 3-meter dive with a score of 398.60 while junior Matt Suarez (Needham, MA) came home seventh (366.45) and sophomore Ryan Coran (Potomac, MD) totaled 336.85 to place ninth.
The quartet of junior Andrew Kelleher (Poughquag, NY), freshman Alex Gallant (Lakeville, MA), sophomore Karim Elsayed (Cairo, Egypt) and sophomore Craig Barrett (Edinburgh, Scotland) raced to the fourth best time of the men’s 800 free relay with a 6:57.19 in the slower heat of the event. Senior Alex Powers (North Scituate, RI), sophomore David Smallwood (Bangor, ME), Nathan Hughes (Arlington, VA) and junior Andrew Bauer (Cumberland, RI) appeared to not only win, achieve a B cut which was much better than last year’s NCAA Division III Championships invited time (6:45.92) but also set the program record, as well as the NEWMAC Championships record and NEWMAC Open record, with a time of 6:40.76, before being disqualified.
The four-day event continues tomorrow with the 200 Free Relay, 500 free, 200 IM, 50 Free and 400 Medley Relay prelims at 10am with the finals commencing at 6:30pm. The women’s 3-meter dive prelims will get underway at approximately 1:15pm.
