The men and women’s swimming and diving team met an unfortunate fate this past week, dropping their meets in blowout fashion. 

Both squads dropped their respective meets against their tough cross-town rival, the Bentley University Falcons. 

The meet results give little reason for excitement or celebration, as the Falcons had no trouble dispatching both the women’s and men’s squad. The men lost, falling in a 191-97 decision, while the women suffered a big 191-91 defeat. 

While neither team was able to pull out a victory by night’s end, there were two individual bright spots on the evening: men’s double winner Zach Diamond ’18 and women’s double winner Fallon Bushee ’16. Diamond, who is in the middle of a stellar season, fresh off earning four top-10 finishes for the men’s squad at the Rochester Invitational, won the 1000-yard free by over an 11-second margin of victory, leaving no doubts about his swimming prowess on the year. 

His time was 10:19.36. Diamond also claimed victory in the 400-yard individual medley, notching an impressive time of 4:28.36. 

In addition to his two victories, Diamond placed second in the 500 free, finishing with a time of 5:03.96. After being named CollegeSwimming.com’s National D3 Swimmer of the Week in October, Diamond continues to build momentum heading into the season’s stretch run for the next few weeks. 

For the women, Bushee swam her way to a pair of victories on the evening as well. 

In a meet of relatively little excitement, Bushee’s two narrow victories provided some fun for the fans and a much needed dose of excitement for the Judges. 

First, Bushee captured the 50-yard freestyle by just 0.29 seconds, a slight margin by all considerations. Her final time was 26.17 seconds. Bushee then claimed another narrow victory, winning the 100-yard butterfly by just 0.19 seconds. 

Her final time in the butterfly was 57.10 seconds. 

Bushee’s strong showing came as little surprise, as the senior has made a career of claiming individual victories.

While Diamond and Bushee were the focal points of the meet, other Brandeis swimmers had strong showings against the Falcons. Joanna Murphy ’17 gave Brandeis a sweep in the 1000, finishing with a time of 11:22.54, winning by almost a full minute over teammate Theresa Gaffney ’18, who herself placed second. Further, Edan Zitelny ’17 claimed victory in the 200-butterfly with a time of 2:04.82. Finally, Cameron Braz ’17 claimed the most thrilling victory of the day, outtouching his opponent by a mere 0.03 seconds, finishing with a time of 49.85. 

The women’s loss drops the team to 2-4 on the season. As for the men, the loss drops the squad to 1-4 on the year. 

That said, the few bright spots that came away from the day should not be overlooked. 

For Diamond and Bushee, as well as the other individual winners, the momentum they are building should be fostered now and used to turn each team’s season around in the later portions of the year. 

Coming up next, each squad will have an opportunity to start their turnaround, as the men and women’s teams will participate in the Worcester Polytechnical Institute Invitational on Dec. 4 to 6 in the coming weeks.