CMU swimming and diving beats Grove and Rochester

This weekend, the Carnegie Mellon’s swimming and diving teams hosted a tri-meet against the University of Rochester and Grove City College. Each tri-meet, both men’s and women’s, is scored as three unique head-to-head meets. This tri-meet saw the men winning 232–62 against Grove City and 214.5–73.5 against Rochester. The women’s team won 225–75 against Grove City and 175–124 against Rochester.

The men started off strong with a win in the 200-yard medley, with senior Josh Lucheon, first-year Matt Chu, sophomore Sivan Mehta, and sophomore Brian Jay combining for a time of 1:34.39. This was followed up by a one-two finish in the 1,000-yard freestyle with first-year Josh Taekman taking first in 9:59.51 and fellow first-year Alex Glidden right behind in 10:13.51.

The Tartans kept up their blistering pace as they had another one-two finish in the 200-yard freestyle, this time with junior Steven Geier taking first in 1:45.23 and senior Andrew Yee taking second with a time of 1:46.36. In the 100-yard backstroke, Carnegie Mellon had to settle for just first place as Mehta claimed the top spot with a time of 52.93.

Chu kept up the trend of relay participants also winning their individual competitions, taking the 100-yard breaststroke in a time of 58.55, just before the Tartans swept the top spots in the 200-yard butterfly with sophomore Brian Walsh, senior Dave Campbell, and first-year Edward Healy touching the wall with times of 1:54.45, 1:56.79 and 1:59.79, respectively.

The next win for the Tartans was actually a tie in the 200-yard backstroke when first-year Michael DiBacco tied with a Rochester swimmer with a time of 1:57.54. This was quickly redeemed in the 200-yard breaststroke when junior Matthew Nielson, Jay, and Chu finished one-two-three with times of 2:11.47, 2:14.61, and 2:15.20, respectively. Yee, Tackman, and Glidden repeated the feat in the 500-yard freestyle with times of 4:48.62, 4:48.63, and 4:53.94, respectively.

In the 100-yard butterfly, Carnegie Mellon managed to only win, and not sweep, the podium, with Walsh taking the victory in 51.50, but quickly returned to domination when Nielson, sophomore Jay Jin, and senior Roy Sung took the top three spots in the 200-yard individual medley with times of 1:57.77, 1:58.35, and 2:01.99. To cap off their domination, the Tartans took the final swimming event, with Jay, Tackman, Mehta, and first-year Kevin Steinhouse winning the 200-yard freestyle relay in a time of 1:26.87.
On the diving side, juniors Noah Fatsi and Yannos Michailidis were still a ways behind their competition, but showed a marked improvement from the beginning of the season, particularly in the 1-meter dive.

For the women, dominance was the expectation and the result starting from the first event where first-year Anna Wong, junior Felicia Wang, sophomore Gillian Crews, and first-year Tiana Marrese combined for the 200-yard medley relay in 1:49.70. First-year Emma Shi had the next Tartan victory in the 200-yard freestyle with a tie of 1:57.85 followed by a one-two-three finish for Wong, junior Kira Singhaus and first-year Brinda Malhotra in the 100-yard backstroke in times of 1:00.46, 1:01.09, and 1:02.22.

First-year Kim Hochstedler and Wang combined for a one-two finish in the 100-yard breaststroke with times of 1:08.00 and 1:08.76, respectively, before Shi, Malhotra, and junior Paige Sieffert finished one-two-three in the 200-yard backstroke, touching the wall at the 2:09.27, 2:12.69, and 2:14.64 marks, respectively. This feat was matched in the next event when Hochstedler, sophomore Natalie Kronfli, and Wang went one-two-three in the 200-yard breaststroke in 2:30.51, 2:32.90, and 2:33.79, respectively. In the 200-yard individual medley, Carnegie Mellon only managed a one-two finish, with Shi and first-year Mary St. John touching the wall in 2:11.73 and 2:16.81, respectively.

On the diving side, the women were more competitive than the men, but still failed to win with sophomore Machika Kaku coming closest with a second place finish in the 1-meter dive.

Both Tartan teams will next swim on Saturday when they host Washington and Lee University and Allegheny College.