Albion, Mich. — This past Saturday (Jan. 27), the men's swim and dive team took on Albion at the Dean Aquatic Center. After a long and continuous battle in the pool, the points were calculated and the Saints narrowly notched the victory by a score of 143-142.
Meet Background:
This was AQ's last regular-season meet before the conference championship meet. Given that, the coaches agreed to run a 16-event meet format with 50s and 100s of strokes for a more sprint-oriented meet. Several athletes were vying to earn "A" relay spots and make final race preparations for the conference meet in less than two weeks.
Men's Team Highlights
The men's A 200 medley relay of
Evan Hurtado,
Luke Martin,
Collin Neely, and
Titus Smith took the win in the first relay, just out-touching Albion's A relay by .65 seconds.
The men's B 200 medley relay of
Ian Clapp,
Cesar Robles,
Collin Alward and Matt Dumbsky placed third, shutting out Albion's B relay from a scoring position and setting the team up for an early lead.
Smith asserted his dominance by claiming first in both of his individual events - the 50 backstroke (25.11) and 50 butterfly (24.05). Neely finished in second in the 50 butterfly (24.24), swaying the total team scores to favor the Saints at this point of the meet.
Dumbsky claimed first place in the 100 freestyle with his fastest regular-season time of 50.04 seconds. He was narrowly edged out of first in the 50 freestyle, claiming second place in 22.12 seconds.
Breaststroke duo
Luke Martin and
Cesar Robles swept the top two finishes in the 50, with Martin finishing in 27.69 seconds and Robles in 28.25 seconds.
Arguably, the swaying factor of the meet on the men's side were the 1M and 3M diving events.
Evan Bennett and
Troy Borrero placed first and second on both the 1M and 3M boards respectively. Bennett set a massive new 1M team record by nearly 40 points, scoring a total of 313.35 points.
The pool deck erupted after Borrero earned his highest score on the 3M board, punching his ticket to NAIA nationals in what was his last chance to qualify. Both Bennett and Borrero are the first divers in Aquinas history to qualify for the national meet on both the 1M and 3M boards.
Although the A 200 freestyle relay of Dumbsky, Smith,
Evan Hurtado and Martin fell short of a victory, they finished in second place. The reliable B relay of
Conrad Eichbauer, Joe Rush, Neely and
Collin Alward finished in third, edging out Albion's B relay from a scoring spot. It was just enough for the men's team to take the overall meet win by one point!
A quote from Coach Hepp from the days performance: "This was a really fun meet because we had very strong competitors in every event. The frontrunner changed after every race and dive, so we were on edge the entire meet! As the last regular-season meet of the year, Coach Brownell from Albion and I decided to run a rare sprint-meet format to get the energy up and to see some speed going into our championship season."
"Our athletes showed up to compete, and while not every race went our way, we showed our depth and strength on both the men's and women's side. I'm ecstatic that our men won the meet by one point: every single swimmer from the top to bottom put everything on the line to win as a team.
Troy Borrero really picked up the team's energy with his national qualification on the 3M board! I'm really proud of how he and the team responded to pressure."
Up Next
The Saints will return to the Elkhart Aquatic Center in Indiana for the KCAC Championship. The competition begins Thursday (Feb. 8) and will finish on Saturday (Feb. 10).
