The Amherst men’s swimming and diving team finished their regular season with two meets last week. On Saturday, the No. 12 purple and white fell to No. 4 ranked Massachusetts Institute of Technology by a score of 197-102.
Although the team lost, many Amherst swimmers had strong races. In the 1000-yard freestyle, Connor Haley ’17 won in 9:51.50, closely followed by teammate Chris Quinones ’19, who took second with a time of 10:01.04. In the 200-yard freestyle John Brody ’17 finished first (1:43.97) and Eric Wong ’20 finished second (1:44.20). Wong also posted a victory in the 500-yard freestyle, finishing in 4:40.59. Craig Smith ’20 won the 100-yard backstroke with a time of 52.52 and placed second in the 200-yard backstroke with a time of 1:53.61.
Jack Koravos ’20 added two more second-place finishes for Amherst in the 50-yard freestyle (21.35) and the 100-yard freestyle (47.08), while Elijah Spiro ’18 and Sam Spurrell ’18 also posted second places finishes for the team. Spiro finished the 100-yard breaststroke in 58.23 while Spurrell finished the 200-yard butterfly in 1:55.20. Amherst took second in the 200-yard medley relay as well, with the team of Smith, Spiro, Koravos and Alex Dreisbach ’17 finishing in a time of 1:33.91.
On Sunday, the purple and white returned to the pool to face off against Springfield College. Amherst bounced back from its loss the previous day by defeating Springfield, 144-115. The purple and white started off the meet strong, taking the top two spots in the 200-yard medley relay. The quartet of Smith, Josh Chen ’19, Spiro and Koravos took first in 1:37.44, while Spurrell, Sean Mebust ’20, John Janzich ’18 and John Brody ’17 comprised the second-place squad, touching the wall in 1:41.34. Additionally, Wong won the 400-yard individual medley with a time of 4:11.48, while Chen won the 50-yard freestyle in 22.73.
Amherst further proved its dominance with sweeps in many of the events. Dreisbach (1:46.89), Haley (1:47.65) and Nathan Ives ’18 (1:49.99) placed first, second, and third, respectively, in the 200-yard freestyle. Spiro (26.63), Quinones (27.95) and Noah Jacobs ’20 (29.10) took the top three spots in the 50-yard breaststroke. Three first-years, Koravos (48.29), Mebust (49.60) and Noah Aube (52.02), swept the 100-yard freestyle. In the 50-yard backstroke, Spurrell won in 25.20, closely followed by Jack Fergus ’20 (25.95) and Brandon Wang ’20 (26.10). Spurrell tallied another first-place finish (53.83), while Fergus took second again (56.34), in the 100-yard backstroke. Reed Patterson ’17 added another victory for Amherst in the 100-yard butterfly with a mark of 55.46.
The team will return to action later this month when they compete in the NESCAC championship, which will be hosted by Wesleyan on the weekend of Feb. 17-19.
