After two disappointing losses to begin the season, the men's and women's swimming and diving teams finally got into the win column last Thursday. The Judges trounced Babson College at home, with the men's team winning 116-79 and the women's team winning 114-58. Both squads are now 1-2 this season.

Despite the victories, coach James Zotz was quick to mention that Babson was missing a lot of their top swimmers.

"Unfortunately a good number of the Babson athletes were sick or injured," he said, "The competition was not as high as we would have expected."

The meet also saw women's diver Charlotte Rea '08 reach the benchmark to potentially qualify for the NCAA Division III Championships, a feat she has accomplished in each of the last three seasons.

But that success came at a cost, as Rea suffered an injury during the one-meter diving event. She tumbled her body in the air on her first dive, but landed awkwardly on her back in the water and received several low scores from the judges. She then emerged from the pool slowly, holding her right ear in agony, and had to be helped out of the pool.

Zotz said Friday she will be out of the pool for 10 days. Rea also missed last year's NCAA Championships, when she qualified but was too sick to compete.

"Assuming Charlotte is not able to compete, we will certainly be handicapped on the women's side," Zotz said.

In the swimming events, the Judges got multiple wins from Leah Lipka '09, Siobhan Lyons '10 and Rachel Sawicki '10. Lipka won the 200-yard freestyle with a time of two minutes, 9.22 seconds, and also won the 200-yard backstroke. Lyons won the 200-yard butterfly and the 500-yard freestyle, while Sawicki won the 200-yard individual medley and the 200-yard breastroke.

On the men's side, the Judges won all of the 11 swimming events, led by James Liu '10 and Nick Rice '08, who each recorded multiple individual victories.

Before the meet, Liu spoke of improving his turns to avoid losing tight races, but he didn't need to worry about close finishes in this meet. He easily won the 100-yard freestyle with a time of 49.62, defeating teammate Ross Goldstein '11 by over two seconds.

Liu also won the 200-yard individual medley with a time of 2:07.45, again routing Goldstein, who recorded a time of 2:08.44 in second place.

"We had some fast swims and the atmosphere was relaxed," Liu said, "I got up there and raced my hardest."

Rice was victorious in the 50-yard freestyle and the 200-yard backstroke with times of 22.94 and 2:04.45, respectively. He also teamed with Liu, Josh Klitenick '11, and Eli Tukachinsky '11 to win the 400-yard individual medley with a time of 3:53, over 12 seconds faster than the second-place team.

Both teams resume play at home against Bentley College today. Zotz said the team still needs to improve in order to maintain the positive momentum gathered this week.

"We'll need to perform as well and better in some events if we hope to come away with two more wins," he said.