Despite their best efforts, the MIT Engineers and the Babson Beavers were incapable of damming the speed of the Bowdoin Swim Teams last weekend. Last Saturday's tri-meet between MIT, Babson and Bowdoin set the Polar Bears on the right track, with the women sweeping the competition and the men coming home 1-1.
The Bears were particularly pleased with their performance, especially given the fact that both Babson and MIT swimmers had been in the pool practicing almost two months more than Bowdoin, due to NESCAC regulations.
On the men's side, Bowdoin's only first place finish went to Zach Perez '12 in the 100-yard breaststroke. However, strong finishes by both talented first years and seasoned veterans propelled the men to a victory over Babson.
The 200-yard medley relay team of Josh Kimball '09, Nathan Mecray '12, Mac Routh '12 and David Swanson '09 finished less than a second behind the first-place MIT relay team. Mecray also finished second in the 50- and 100-yard freestyle races, and Routh finished second in the 100-yard butterfly and third in the 100-yard backstroke. Christian Hurst '11, Max Goldstein '09, and Ian Wandner '09 swept the second, third and fourth places in the 200-yard butterfly.
Despite losing to the MIT delegation, the Bowdoin team looks forward to returning to Cambridge this weekend to "finish what we have started," said Hurst.
However, the show last Saturday belonged to the Bowdoin women. Battering Babson and edging out MIT by a three-point margin, the female swimmers asserted their dominance across the board. With individual victories from Allen Garner '12 (200-yard freestyle), Molly Homoki ' 11 (200-yard individual medley), Erin McAuliffe '11 (100- and 200-yard backstroke), Caitlin Callahan '11 (100- and 200-yard breastroke) and Allison Palmer '11 (50- and 100-yard freestyle) as well as team victories in the 200-yard medley relay and the 400-yard freestyle relay, the women's team sent a strong message to the rest of the NESCAC.
Assistant Coach Holly Buss summed up the meet in two words. "We rocked!" she said.
This weekend, the Bowdoin swimmers will return to Cambridge for the MIT Invitational, a multi-team event where the Polar Bears will face not only MIT, but also Wheaton, Tufts, NYU, Brandeis and NESCAC rival, Colby.
Although the invitational is not scored, sophomore Roger Brothers said the match is still going to be competitive.
"There are going to be a ton of fast swims this weekend," he said. "We just want to make sure that most of them are coming from us."