Competing against Tufts University, a team with nearly three times the number of swimmers on Brandeis' roster, the men's and women's swimming and diving teams suffered their first loss of the month last Sunday.After winning three straight meets, one of which was a 128-109 victory over Division II Bentley College last Tuesday, the men's team fell to Tufts 205-82, while the women's team saw a four-meet winning streak end with a 169.5-114.5 loss to the Jumbos. The women's squad also took a 133-108 victory over Bentley last Tuesday. The men's team fell to 3-3 with the loss to Tufts, while the women's team is now 4-2 on the season.

"[The Jumbos] just have a very large team," James Liu '10 said. "They just have a lot of depth. . They just have so many swimmers that can swim everything."

Some of the swimmers said that many of them competed in events they don't normally swim to practice for the Dec. 5 Massachusetts Institute of Technology Invitational. The MIT Invitational is a longer meet that features some races that the swimmers don't swim in most dual meets, including the 400-yard individual medley and the 1650-yard freestyle.

"It was a way for people to sort of swim those events before the Invitational, to see where they're at and sort of see what they need to work on so they can do better in a couple weeks at MIT," women's team captain Rachel Nadas '09 said.

The men's side took first-place finishes in three individual events. Liu placed first in the 200-yard backstroke with a time of 2 minutes, 8.18 seconds.

"I had never really [swum] backstroke that well, so I was just testing it out to see how I [could] swim, and I did okay," said Liu, who also swam in the 100-yard backstroke event, where he placed third. "I wasn't . completely happy with my [times], but, like, it's fine for right now."

Marc Eder '12 and Aaron Bennett '11 picked up the other first-place finishes. Eder won the 200-yard breaststroke event in 2:20.32, while Bennett won the 200-yard butterfly event with a time of 2:00.36.

"I knew that today was [a] day to experiment, so I just sort of tried to give it my all and see how fast I could come back after pushing it all out on the first 100 [yards]," Bennett said.

On the women's side, Angela Chui '12 won three individual events, including the 100- and 200-yard butterfly events. She won the 100-meter event in 55.70 seconds and the 200-meter event in 2:14.98.

"[The 200-yard butterfly race] was pretty much neck-and-neck down to like the 150 [yard-mark], and then the last 50 [yards], I tried to give it all I got," Chui said.

Chui also won the 200-yard freestyle race in 2:00.03 minutes and set a school record in the 400-yard individual medley event with a time of 4:40.48.

Dana Simms '11 had multiple first-place finishes, winning the three-meter diving event as well as the 200-yard individual medley race.

Chui and Julia Derk '12 led the women's team last Tuesday during the Judges' meet at Bentley. The classmates each had two individual wins, and Chui set a school record in the 200-yard individual medley race with a time of 2:11.49. Elise Allan '12, Dana Simms '11, Siobahn Lyons '10 and Hollis Viray '10 also had victories in individual events.

On the men's side, Liu, Eder and Bobby Morse '09 each captured two events, and Alex Cemaj '10 and Bennett rounded out the first-place finishes with victories in the 1,000-yard freestyle and the 200-yard butterfly races, respectively.

Both teams will next compete at the MIT Invitational from Dec. 5-7.