The Middlebury swimming and diving teams ended their respective opening weekends with a dual meet Sunday in Tufts' Hamilton Pool. The Middlebury women fell to the Jumbos by a narrow 156-144 count, while the men were defeated 185-110. The Panthers return to the pool on Saturday, December 3 when they open the home portion of the schedule with a meet against Amherst.
During women's action in the day's opening relay, the 400 medley team of Claire Treesh, Celia Ripple, Frances VanderMeer and Morgan Burke were victorious with a time of 4:02.25.
A trio of Panthers tallied two individual wins apiece. VanderMeer won both the 50 back (28.71) and 50 fly (27.12), while Ripple stopped the clock first in the 50 breaststroke (30.78) and 100 breaststroke (1:07.58). Burke stopped the clock first in the 100 free (55.39) and the 200 free (2:00.23), while Caitlin Carroll swam to a victory in the 1,000 free (11:16.40).
On the diving boards, Elissa DeNunzio claimed the 1-meter title with 236.47 points.
The women's meet came down to the final event of the afternoon. With the Jumbos clinging to a 145-140 lead in the team scores going into the 400 free relay, the Tufts quartet won the event for 11 team points with a time of 3:40.81. That time narrowly edged the Middlebury team consisting of VanderMeer, Stephanie Andrews, Olivia Mitchell and Burke, who touched the wall in 3:43.04.
For the men, Michael McGean recorded two victories in the longest freestyle events. He stopped the clock with a winning time by more than 10 seconds of 4:50.25 in the 500 free, while leading the field to the wall in the 1,000 free with a mark of 9:56.50, winning the event by 26 seconds.
Charles Quinn recorded the other individual event victory for the Panther men, claiming the 200 individual medley with a mark of 2:02.55.
In the final event of the meet, the Panther quartet of Brendan Leech, McGean, Jack Dowling and Connor McCormick touched the wall six seconds ahead of the runner-up team with a time of 3:19.28.
Will Greene racked up 255.07 points en route to the 3-meter diving crown.
