The men and women’s swimming and diving team swam to a number of solid individual finishes at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute Gompei Invitational over the weekend, anchored by a strong day from Zach Diamond ’18. The men’s squad ended the invitational with 825.5 points, good for seventh place, while the women swam to a 10th-place finish, scoring 408.5 points in  the process.

Men’s squad (825.5 points— 7th place)

Diamond’s strong day was led by his sixth-place finish in the 1,650-yard freestyle race, during which he stopped the clock at 16 minutes, 43.42 seconds. Diamond’s sixth-place entry was a full 10 seconds out of fifth place but more than 15 ahead of the next competitor. The race was a touch faster than his 4:22.63 time in the preliminary round and just two seconds behind the seventh-place finisher. Diamond managed 13th in the 500-yard freestyle, good for third overall in the B Final, swimming to a time of 4:55.80. He also managed a top-15 finish in the 100-yard individual medley, covering the course in 56.81 seconds. 

Diamond swam the third leg of the 11th-place 200-yard medley relay quartet, along with Edan Zitelny ’17, Adib Milani ’18 and Cam Braz ’17. The four totaled a time of 1:40.42 and missed out on the top 10 by less than a second. 

Zitelny turned in a solid performance for the Judges, grabbing a trio of top-15 individual finishes at the meet. His time of 1:59.42 in the 200-yard backstroke was 14th overall and fourth in the B Final, a shade over one second out of the top three in the race. He won the B Final of the 100-yard butterfly race, touching the wall at the 53.56 mark, two-tenths of a second faster than the next competitor. His time was better than three of the swimmers in the A Final as well. Zitelny managed a 12th-place finish in the 100-yard backstroke, stopping the timer at the 55.07 mark. 

Women’s squad (408.5 points —10th place)

The women’s squad saw a number of swimmers turn in solid swims at the meet. Kylie Herman ’19 turned in a strong performance in the B Final of the 500-yard freestyle race, claiming 14th overall with a time of 5:17.30. Herman also managed 16th overall in the 100-yard butterfly race, stopping the timer at the 1:01.93 mark, a half-second improvement on her time from the preliminary race. Herman was just out-touched for a spot in the top-15, losing out by three tenths of a second. She also swam to an 18th-place finish in the 100-yard freestyle race, turning in a time of 55.98 seconds. Less than seven-tenths of a second separated Hermann from a third-place finish in the B Final of the 100-yard freestyle, but she did manage to touch the wall a full half-second ahead of the next competitor. She rounded her day out with an even 2:00.0 finish in the 200-yard freestyle race, earning a sixth-place finish in the race’s B Final.

Fallon Bushee ’16 took home a good performance, earning 10th place in the 50-yard freestyle with a time of 25.64 seconds. She was closely followed on the timer by Amy Sheinhait ’18, who swam to a 25.71 finish, good for 13th overall, and tied for third in the B Final of the race. Both squads will return to action following an extended break with a meet at Colby College, scheduled for Jan. 10 at 1 p.m.