The William and Mary men's swimming team gave visiting ACC-foe Duke all it could handle Friday night at the Rec Center before falling 143-119.  The Tribe is now 4-2 on the year, while the Blue Devils improved to 2-2 overall.

Complete Results

The meet, which included four first-ever events for W&M, had a number of nail-biting finishes as the Tribe grabbed four wins in the 14-event schedule.  The first win came courtesy of freshman Conrad Zamparello (Midlothian, Va.), who thrilled the crowd by pulling away over the last few laps of the 1000 free to win in 9:42.21.  That ranks Zamparello 12th all-time at W&M in the event.  Junior Will Manion (Haddonfield, N.J.) also took a win, cruising to the wall in the 100 back at 49.29.  Manion was also a narrow runner-up in the 50 back (23.39) and in the 100 IM, where his 51.70 showing was just .01 off the lead and set the Tribe's school record in the rare event.

The distance events provided another big win for the Green and Gold, as sophomore Joe Eiden (White Plains, N.Y.) grabbed control of the 500 free earlier and held on for the 4:44.19 win.  Eiden also contributed in the final win of the night, but needed to only go about a tenth of the distance of his first.  He led-off the Tribe's 200 free relay with a 21.57 leg, handing the baton off with the lead.  Freshman Kyle Neri (Wallingford, Conn.) had a great leg in the second position, but slipped to second place going up against Duke's top sprinter, before handing things off to the brothers Clarke in the last half of the race.  Sophomore Risten Clarke (Chappaqua, N.Y.) went 20.77 in his leg, best on the team, and had narrowed the gap to just 0.47 for his older brother, senior Taegan Clarke (Chappaqua, N.Y.) on the anchor.  The elder Clarke went 20.87 for the win, blowing by Duke's swimmer in the final 25 for a convincing win in 1:24.32, 0.2 ahead of the opponents.

The Tribe also had runner-up showings in seven more events besides Manion's.  The big backstroke champion led-off the 200 medley relay that finished second in 1:32.62, teaming with Jeremiah O'Donnell (Chapel Hill, N.C.), Evan Baker (Chantilly, Va.), and Alex Montes de Oca (Orange, Va.).  O'Donnell and Baker were also two-time silver medalists individually, O'Donnell in the 200 free (1:41.90) and the 100 breast (57.64) while Baker swam the 100 fly (50.50) and the 50 fly (23.00).  Taegan Clarke, before his relay heroics, finished second in both the 50 free, at 21.47 seconds, and the 100 free in 46.74 seconds.

William and Mary now has two weeks off before its annual fall invitational.  The Tribe will once again head out to Christiansburg, Va., for the Hokie Fall Invitational on Nov. 20-22.