After a loss in their first meet of the season against Rensselaer, UR’s men’s swimming and diving team was eager to prove themselves against rival SUNY Brockport.
UR subdued their opponent 132-98.
The team jumped to a very fast start by winning the 400-yard medley relay. The relay, made up of sophomore Craig Matt, senior Alex Provan and sophomores Zach Freed and Brian Macilvain was very strong, setting the tone for the rest of the meet.
“The guys put us in a really good position to get what we needed to done,” Head Coach Danielle Herring said. “They knew what they needed to get done in order for us to dominate, and they went out there with racing on their minds.”
Matt and Freed further secured the lead by winning the 1,000-yard freestyle and the 200-yard freestyle, respectively. Matt was also the first to the wall in the 200-yard butterfly and Freed won the 200-yard backstroke.
“I felt good and strong,” Matt said. “I am excited that we swam so well, and I’m looking forward to the rest of the season. This was just a prelude, and we have a lot of room to improve.”
“I felt good for this early in the season,” Freed said. “The team had a lot of great swims.”
UR swimmers touched the wall first a total of seven times. But it was not just the effort of the frontrunners that won this meet for the Yellowjackets. Rochester fought hard for every inch, putting up a strong fight on every swim.
Teammates pushed each other to perform in the meet.
“When I swam the 200 fly, it was amazing,” freshman Joe Subjeck said. “I have never been a flyer, but the whole team was cheering me on, and it was a great experience. It really made me swim faster.”
The team’s performance in the pool was accentuated by the incredible effort put forth by the men’s diving team.
“They are too often underappreciated,” Herring said. “Without their outstanding performance, things might have turned out much differently.”
Junior Ted Elton finished first on both the one and three-meter boards with scores of 160.35 and 169.05 respectively.
“It was a great meet,” Elton said. “I performed much better than last week, and it was nice to get back in the groove.”
“Overall, I was very happy with the meet,” Herring said. “I am looking forward to next weekend when we face off against [SUNY] Geneseo. It should be one of our toughest challenges of the season.”
Nissan can be reached at dnissan@campustimes.org.
