After finishing the first day of last weekend's Massachusetts Institute of Technology Invitational in seventh place out of as many teams, the women's swimming and diving team bounced back on the second day and jumped up to fifth place overall with a two-day total of 366 points.The men's team also climbed in the standings on the second day of the Invitational, improving one spot to finish in fourth place out of seven teams with 344 points overall.

The women's team finished ahead of Bowdoin College and Colby College, which finished sixth and seventh respectively, but behind New York University, Tufts University, MIT and Wheaton College. The men's squad defeated Bowdoin, Wheaton and Colby but finished behind MIT, NYU and Tufts.

"We kind of . started off slow," James Liu '10 said. "But . especially [on the second day], we definitely swam pretty well."

New York University won the meet on the women's side with 970.5 points, while MIT placed first in the men's competition with 1,038 points.

"We seemed to have, by the end of the first [day] and going into [the second day], done a much better job [in] moving forward, and then statistically everything started to fall into place," coach Jim Zotz said.

Angela Chui '12 led the women's team with three first-place finishes in the 200-yard and 400-yard individual medley races, as well as the 200-yard backstroke. Chui swam the 200-yard IM in a time of two minutes, 10.16 seconds, meeting the NCAA Division III B Cut qualifying standard and setting a school record. Chui also won the 400-yard IM with a time of 4:37.07, once again meeting the B qualifying standard for the NCAA Championship and setting another Brandeis record.

"I was happy with the times and qualifying, but I was also happy. getting the points and trying to move up on the team ranking-wise," Chui said.

Chui also finished first in the 200-yard backstroke event with a time of 2:09.36 and second out of 46 swimmers in the 100-yard backstroke event with a time of 59.92 seconds. The latter time was another school-record finish.

Hollis Viray '10 had the only other first-place finish for the Judges in the 200-yard breaststroke with a time of 2:30.58, meeting the B qualifying standard for the Eastern College Athletic Conference tournament.

Julia Derk '12 had the next-highest individual finish for the women's team, placing fourth and making the ECAC B Cut in the 200-yard freestyle event with a time of 1:59.59.

Chui, Derk, Siobhan Lyons '10 and Viray combined for a fourth-place finish out of 18 teams in the 800-yard freestyle relay with a time of 8:10.45, a school record.

Dana Simms '11 took third place in both the 1-meter and 3-meter dives with scores of 178.30 and 186.25 points, respectively.

On the men's side, Aaron Bennett '11 finished third in the 200-yard butterfly with a time of 2:00.16, a season-best.

"I ended up out-touching one of the MIT swimmers by [.01 seconds] to get the third place, so that was really exciting, I guess, for the others to watch," Bennett said. "I was just swimming hard, and I'd only realized that I was right next to [the MIT swimmer during] the last lap. ... It gave me a little fire."

Marc Eder '12 also had a third-place finish in the 200-yard breaststroke and a fourth-place finish in the 100-yard breaststroke with times of 2:15.00 and 1:01.03, respectively. His times in both events were enough to qualify for the ECAC A Cut.

Liu finished fourth in the 100-yard freestyle with a time of 47.58 seconds, a lifetime best, and classmate Alex Cemaj '10 added a fourth-place finish in the 1,650-yard freestyle event.

Both teams will resume their seasons when they travel to face Wheaton College Jan. 14 at 6:30 p.m.