Over the weekend, both the Brandeis men's and women's swimming and diving teams placed sixth at the nine-member UAA conference championships at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio.The men tallied 283 points during the event, finishing 39 points behind fifth-place finisher New York University and a comfortable 73 in front of the University of Rochester.

Captain Marshall Goldman '03 qualified for the NCAA's in the 100-yard Butterfly with a time of 51.36 seconds (just .04 out of an All-Association slot). Goldman also qualified for nationals in the 200 Fly with at time of 1:55.82.

The men, who finished sixth at the UAA's for the second year in a row, also enjoyed a stellar individual performance from Nick Pai '05, who earned an NCAA qualifying time of 53.05 seconds in the 100-yard Backstroke.

For the women, co-captain Maya Marx recorded the fastest time of the meet in the 100-meter Breaststroke with a preliminary time of 1:06.76. Marx's finals time of 1:07.01 tied her with Washington University's Allie Boetger, who was favored to win that heap.

The women also came through in some tightly-contested diving events, as Shira Friedman '04 finished fifth in the 3-meter diving event with a score of 375.55. According to Friedman, the 3-meter is the most difficult of all diving events. "It's a higher board and it's a little bit scary because of that height. You also tend to perform more difficult dives off that board."

Despite the team's sixth place finish in both the men's and women's competition, Friedman seemed satisfied with the efforts of her teammates. "We really pulled through," she said, "A lot of the hard work that we put in during the season really showed through at the UAA's, which is what we had hoped for all along."

On Friday, Brandeis swimmers will take the short trip to Bentley College to take part in the New England Championships. Athletes from Tufts, Bentley and Trinity College will take part in the festivities.