Amherst men’s swim and dive had a full weekend, highlighted by a dominating victory on senior night on Sunday, Feb. 4 at Pratt Pool. To kick off the weekend, however, the Mammoths travelled to No. 4 Massachusetts Institute of Technology on Saturday, Feb. 3 to compete in a dual meet.

Despite several impressive individual performances, the Engineers overwhelmed the Amherst squad, holding a 213-86 advantage over the Mammoths. The consistently dominant group of Craig Smith ’20, Elijah Spiro ’18, Sam Spurrell ’18 and Jack Koravos ’20 started the day off strong for Amherst, racing to a second place finish in the 200-yard medley relay with a time of 1:33.11.

Smith continued his impressive performance on the day with a victory in the 200-yard backstroke with a time of 1:52.45, while Spurrell clinched a second-place finish in the 200-yard butterfly. The Mammoths best event of the day was the 100-yard breaststroke, where they swept the top two spots, with Ang Li ’21 finishing second behind another Smith victory.

Spiro touched the wall in 57.79 seconds in the 100-yard breaststroke to place second and add four points to Amherst’s total, while junior Josh Chen took third with a time of 58.49 seconds. In another two-three podium finish, Sean Mebust ’20 clinched second in the 200 yard breaststroke with a time of 2:07.67, while Eric Wong ’20 took the bronze in the 500 yard freestyle with a 4:47.20 mark. In the 1,000-yard freestyle, senior Nathan Ives secured another second-place finish with a time of 10:02.40. To round out the swimming side of the meet, Koravos, Mebust, So and Wong finished third in the 400 yard freestyle relay in a time of 3:12.49.

On the diving board for the Mammoths, Bennett Fagan ’21 earned two second-place finishes, amassing 261.30 points in the three-meter event and 301.80 points on the one-meter board.

Coming off of their first dual-meet loss of the year on Saturday, Amherst burst off the blocks in dominant fashion on Sunday against Springfield College. The afternoon meet marked the team’s Senior Night, as it was the last home event for the Mammoths.

The all-senior quartet of Spurrell, Spiro, John Janezich ’18 and Ives started the meet strong for the Mammoths, claiming first in the 400-yard medley relay in 3:27.56. In the individual 400-yard medley event, Brandon Wang ’20 paced the competition with a 4:14.24 mark.

With a time of 21.47 seconds, Koravos placed first overall in the 50 yard free, while Mebust touched the wall first in the 200-yard freestyle event with 1:46.36. Wong finished off the sweep of the freestyle events, claiming first in the 100-yard race with a time of 47.35.

Smith continued his impressive weekend, earning a victory in the 100-yard backstroke with a 52.86 second mark and breaking the previous pool record of 24.59 seconds in the 50-yard backstroke with a 24.21 mark.

Chen posted another pool record in the 100-yard IM, finishing in 53.23 seconds and besting the previous record by nearly 0.7 seconds.

Spiro added another Mammoth victory and new pool record in the 100-yard breaststroke, touching the wall in 56.81 to break his own pool record of 56.94 that he had set earlier this winter. Finally, in the 500-yard free, Kou Li ’21 clocked a 4:47.18 mark to clinch gold.

With the weekend schedule’s results, Amherst improves to 7-1 in dual meet competition. The Mammoths return to the pool on Friday-Sunday, Feb. 23-25 when they travel to Bowdoin for the NESCAC Championships.