By Staff Writer Tom Griffin.
UMassD’s men’s and women’s swimming and diving teams were handed heavy losses by the Roger Williams Hawks on Saturday.
With both teams set to compete in a grand total of thirty-two events, the Hawks simply outperformed the Corsairs at every turn.
In some cases, the Roger Williams athletes performed so well that the UMassD swimmers often failed to place against them.
The afternoon opened with a 200-yard medley relay for both sexes. In the women’s category, the Corsairs placed fourth. In the men’s category, they placed third.
The Hawks won an additional 8 consecutive events before UMassD sophomore Justin Chung placed first in the men’s 50-yard breaststroke, with a final time of 29.16.
Men’s one-meter diving was a Corsair highlight on an unfortunate afternoon, with Jose Guerrero taking first place with a score of 255.20.
He was followed in third and fourth place by two additional Corsairs. Guerrero would also manage to take first in the three-meter diving competition, winning with a score of 259.15.
The final event, the men’s 400-yard freestyle relay, was a stroke of luck in favor of the Corsairs.
A Hawk-based relay crew originally took first place by a large margin but were later disqualified on a technicality.
In second place, exactly one entire second earlier than the third-placed Roger Williams team, was a Corsair crew consisting of Eric Worden, Luc Durand, Stephen Barrett and David Adamski.
This crew officially took first place, by a small margin.
On the whole, the meet was very rough for the Corsairs to lose. Out of thirty-two total events, UMassD only placed first in four of them. Additionally, most placements consisted of Roger Williams participants, meaning that, even in losing efforts, the Corsairs failed to scoop up participation points.
The Hawks thrashed the Corsairs, to the tune of 419 combined team points in favor of Roger Williams, as opposed to a measly 138 combined team points earned by UMassD.
Dividing the points by sexes paints a sadder picture.
The men’s team lost by a score-line of 201-96, while the women’s team lost by a whopping 218-42 – a margin of 176 points.
Despite the crushing defeat, the Corsairs had some standout performances. Most notably was Jose Guerrero, who won two of Dartmouth’s four total event wins.
Justin Chung’s praiseworthy performance in the 50-yard breaststroke, along with three other placements, earned Dartmouth 13 total points.
Several contributions from the women’s team helped to soften the blow of the heavy loss.
Junior Molly Harrington placed second in the 50-yard backstroke, with freshman Maddie Kovach and junior Sarah Murphy contributing several third-place finishes to add points to the Corsairs total score.
However, no Corsair contributed enough to turn this awful loss against Roger Williams into a win.
After a defeat this heavy, our Corsairs will be looking to turn their season around, but they will have to wait until next Sunday to take on Elms.