This past weekend, the Amherst men’s swimming and diving team picked up another dual meet win, continuing its strong 2016-2017 campaign. Amherst traveled to NESCAC rival Middlebury and picked up a 179.5-113.5 win, making it three victories in a row for Amherst.

The talented team composed of a mix of veterans and fresh faces has impressed so far this season, dominating the NESCAC competition they have faced handily. In addition to dominating the overall affair, the purple and white took first place in 11 events.

In the first event of the meet, the relay team made up of Craig Smith ’20, Sam Spurrell ’18, Josh Chen ’19 and Alex Dreisbach ’17 won the 200-yard medley with a time of 1:36.57, getting Amherst off to a solid start.

Additionally, three first-years tallied two individual victories each. Besides participating in the first-place relay, Smith also won the 100-yard backstroke with a time of 53.10 and the 200-yard backstroke with a time of 1:55.10.

Meanwhile, Eric Wong ’19 took first in the 200-yard freestyle with a mark of 1:44.50 and claimed the 500-yard freestyle with a mark of 4:42.36. Finally, Jack Koravos ’19 clocked first-place times of 21.56 in the 50-yard freestyle and 51.97 in the 100-yard butterfly.

Other first place points came from Connor Haley ’17 with a mark of 10:12.88 in the 1000-yard freestyle, Sean Mebust ’20 with a mark of 59.97 in the 100-yard breaststroke, Spurrell with a mark of 1:55.67 in the 200-yard butterfly, Chen with a mark of 2:12.74 in the 200-yard breaststroke and Mebust again with a mark of 48.77 in the 100-yard freestyle.

Amherst also swept the top three spots in both the 100-yard breaststroke and the 100-yard butterfly, adding to the team’s sizable margin of victory.

In the 100-yard breaststroke, adding to Mebust’s win, Justin Lee ’19 (1:00.06) recorded a second place finish while Chen was third (1:00.67). Following Koravos in the 100-yard butterfly, Spurrell took second in 52.24 while John Janezich ’18 was third with a time of 53.50.

The men’s swimming and diving team, now ranked 13th in the nation, will not compete again until the end of the month, when it will face off against Union on Saturday, Dec. 31 at Pratt Pool.

Following the New Year’s Eve meet, the purple and white will face two NESCAC opponents, Williams and Connecticut College, before matching up with two non-conference foes, Massachusetts Institute of Technology IT and Springfield College, to finish up its regular season.