The Brandeis University Swimming and Diving Teams look to be on its way to their team's best seasons in recent history. Heading into the end of their fall meets, and right on the heels of their Winter Break training trip in Puerto Rico, the teams have been performing amazingly. Right now, both the men's and women's teams have three wins and one loss. The teams' only losses were against Boston College, a Division I opponent, a huge jump in competition level for the Judges. Both teams had victories over Keene St., Bentley, and Babson. Brandeis also finished first out of three teams in the co-ed Michael Zarrilli Memorial Invitational against Keene St. and Gordon. (Zarrilli was a former Brandeis swimmer who passed away during his time at school, but stays in the team's memory through this meet that officially kicks off every season).The men's team has seen a great deal of promise from an impressive and record-breaking incoming class. Before the season officially began, during the "Blue/White" intra-squad meet, Hal Grossman '07 smashed the team's record in the 1000-yard freestyle. Chris Pai '07 tied the decade old 50-yard freestyle record in his first dual meet, against Leon RoseFigura '07 made his presence known against the Boston College Eagles, by beating their best swimmers in the 200-yard freestyle with a Brandeis-record time of 1:46.02.

The rest of the men's team has been equally impressive. Other multiple-race winners through the course of the season include tri-captain Nick Dufresne '04 (breaststroke, IM), Matt Christian '05 (freestyle, backstroke), and Noah Rachlin '05 (IM, butterfly).
This success, of course, is no surprise to Tri-captain Jeremiah Cohen '04, who said, "We've been training harder this year than ever before, and it's been paying off in the pool."

The women's team has also seen great success so far in this season. The Judges were overmatched against Boston College, but they easily took care of Keene State and Babson, and narrowly squeaked past cross-town rival Bentley in a hotly contested meet.
Regarding their success, Tri-captain Paula Schreiber '04 said, "We've been working really hard in practice, and it shows in our meets. We're all really competitive and supportive of each other, and would like to continue to improve on our success."

The Judges have been led by tri-captain Maya Marx '04, a first-team All American last year. She has been a multiple-race winner at every meet so far this season, swimming primarily breaststroke. Other standouts for the women's team have been Shira Friedman '04 (diving), RoseFigura '04 (freestyle, butterfly), Sharon Makowsky '06 (freestyle, butterfly), Lalin Anik '06 (backstroke, IM), and Sarah Evans '06 (freestyle).

The Judges faced off against Rochester and Nazareth, at Rochester, on Saturday, and the results for that meet are not yet available. Brandeis travels to New Haven, CT for the Southern Connecticut Invitational on Dec. 5 and 6, for their last meet of the semester. After that, they will head into their training trip to prepare for the yearly University Athletic Association conference meet, this year being held at Emory University in mid-February.