The William and Mary men's swimming team swept the CAA Pod Meet for the second year in a row this weekend, heading down to Wilmington, N.C. and coming away with a pair of wins. The Tribe downed host UNCW 199-148, and beat Delaware 213-128 to improve to 4-1 (2-1 CAA) on the year. It was W&M's first win at UNCW since 1989.
Complete Results
The two-day meet began on Saturday, and finished shortly after lunch on Sunday. In between those points, the Tribe won 26 of 34 races and did enough to offset a 32-point diving deficit against the Seahawks and a 26-point hole to the Blue Hens. Leading the way was junior Jeremiah O'Donnell (Chapel Hill, N.C.), who is having himself quite the season so far. O'Donnell added to his legend with a pair of dual-meet records on Saturday, winning the 200 IM in 1:51.82 and the 400 IM a few hours later in 4:02.97. Both performances broke the previous records of 1:52.15 and 4:03.25 set by Andrew Strait '14 in the 2011 and 2012 Pod Meets. O'Donnell also won the 200 breast against both opponents in 2:05.03 to finish his weekend a perfect 6-0, and swam on the Tribe's winning 400 medley relay that swam 3:21.68, the eighth-fastest time ever.
Joining O'Donnell on that relay were Will Manion (Haddonfield, N.J.), Evan Baker (Chantilly, Va.), and Alex Montes de Oca (Orange, Va.). Manion collected four wins of his own, sweeping the backstrokes. His winning time of 48.86 broke his own dual-meet record (set in January against ODU), and was the 11th-fastest time ever at W&M. Manion also swam 1:48.49 to take the 200 back, and teamed with Baker, Matt Goetz (Islip, N.Y.), and Risten Clarke (Chappaqua, N.Y.) to win the 200 medley relay against Delaware in 1:33.62.
Baker, a freshman, had four wins of his own as well. He swept the two butterfly events, timing 1:53.37 in the 200 fly and 50.10 in the 100 fly to improve to sixth in school history in that event. Baker also swam on the 200 free relay that won against Delaware in 1:25.66, joining Tommy Kealy (Wilton, Conn.), Taegan Clarke (Chappaqua, N.Y.), and Joe Eiden (White Plains, N.Y.). Taegan Clarke was also a winner against the Blue Hens in the 100 free, touching the wall in 46.57 seconds.
Three more men all won at least once individually, including freshman Conrad Zamparello (Midlothian, Va.). Zamparello won the 500 free and the 1650 free against the Seahawks, timing 4:40.75 and 16:21.71, respectively. He also swam 4:05.17 in the 400 IM, improving to 16th all-time at W&M in the event. Both of Andrew Nyce's (Vienna, Va.) wins came in the 100 breast, where he stopped the clock in 57.83 seconds, just .01 off of his best. Redshirt-junior Lukas Dempsey (New Paltz, N.Y.) won the 200 free against the Seahawks in 1:42.76, and helped close the meet as part of the winning 400 free relay. The Tribe's quartet finished in 3:06.14 to edge out UNCW, and included Eiden, Taegan Clarke, Dempsey, and Montes de Oca.
William and Mary is back in action next weekend, hosting Duke at 5 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 7.
