This past weekend, the men and women’s swimming and diving teams packed their bags and traveled to Clark University for their final meet before the University Athletic Assocation conference tournament. The men’s team won their meet against Clark with a score of 187-100, while the women’s side was not as fortunate, losing their meet 184-89. 

The men cruised to a win even with a lot of the big performers not included in the meet, mostly because of the upcoming UAA tournament. 

Brian Luk ’16 only swam in the 50-yard freestyle, winning with a time of 21.57 seconds. He said that “I swam the 50-free, and I felt confident and great about my time. The goal is to swim fast at UAA in a week or so.” Luk usually swims at multiple short-distance events during a meet but only swam in one meet to stay fresh for the upcoming UAA tournament.

The team clearly had a part of their mind on the upcoming UAA tournament. But that did not stop them from racing a very impressive meet. Zach Diamond ’18 was one of those that helped lead the team to a very comfortable win. 

The first-year raced in four events, winning one of his two relays and winning both of his individual races. For the 200-yard butterfly he won with a time of two minutes and five seconds and for the 500-yard freestyle he finished with a time of 5:01.73, comfortably beating the next closest swimmer by nine seconds.  For his winning relay, he swam with teammates Abu Batjargal ’18, Evan Thom ’18 and Cameron Braz ’17. 

The team ended with a time of 1:31.22, beating the Brandeis B team by six seconds. 

Another impressive performer for the men’s team was Edan Zitelny ’17. Zitelny won the 100-yard butterfly and the 100-yard backstroke, those being his only two individual events out of four. 

He won with a time of 56.46 seconds in the 100-yard butterfly and 58.34 seconds in the 100-yard backstroke. Zitelny won one of his two relay races, with a time of 1:44.52 in the 200-yard medley relay. 

Other winners included Max Fabian ’15 in the 200-yard individual medley with a time of 2:06.49, and Braz who clinched the 200-yard freestyle in 50.54 seconds. 

Sam Zucker ’18 won the one-meter dive with a score of 237.70, and Joey Barr ’18 won the 1000-yard freestyle in 10:44.96. 

The women’s team unfortunately had a much harder time during the weekend. The results did not seem to go their way, causing many second place finishes. 

The races that Brandeis managed to win were the 200-yard freestyle relay with Amy Sheinhait ’18, Maya Saar ’18, Fallon Bushee ’16 and Yi Sul Richter ’18 finishing the relay with a time of 1:49.03, the 200-yard individual medley with Fay Laborio ’16 winning with a time of 2:33.28 and  the 1000-yard freestyle with Richter winning in 11:26.69 minutes. 

The team will now prepare themselves for the UAA championships coming up. To ensure a great tournament, Luk believes “the team has to work at being relaxed and confident about their races- believe in the work they put in and have fun. Especially the guys, I think have to work at being less conservative on their relay starts.” 

With a week and a half to go, the team will be focusing on these aspects to come out of the UAA championships feeling good about its performance as a whole. 

The UAA swimming and diving championships will be held at Emory University in Atlanta later this month on Feb. 11.