The William and Mary men's swimming team closed out the regular season on Saturday, falling on the road at East Carolina 158-130.  The Tribe finished the dual-meet schedule with a 7-2 mark, its best since 1998-99 and just the seventh season with two or fewer losses since WW2.  It is also the first time since 1998-99 that W&M has been undefeated at home (3-0), or undefeated in conference meets (3-0).

Complete Results

Leading the way for the second week in a row was sophomore Will Manion (Haddonfield, N.J.), who won two events as well as the 400 free relay.  Starting off in the 200 free, Manion beat the lifetime-best he set last month against Davidson with a 1:41.12 to win, and improve to 14th all-time at W&M.  Late, he came back in the 200 back with a win in 1:49.32, before leading the team of Taegan Clarke (Chappaqua, N.Y.), Alex Montes de Oca (Orange, Va.), and Billy Russell (Newport News, Va.) to a Tribe dual-meet record of 3:04.77.  In addition to winning the event and setting the record, the relay team's time was the 11th-fastest ever for W&M.

Senior Andrew Strait (Henrico, Va.) hit for the cycle against the Pirates in his final dual meet, winning, placing second, and placing third in his three individual swims.  His win came in the 100 breast, where he timed 57.26 to stop the clock, before he finished third in the 200 breast at 2:07.65 and second in the 200 IM at 1:53.70.  Strait also swam on the winning 200 medley relay to start the meet, teamming with Austin Glass (Mechanicsville, Va.), John Rittenhouse (London, England), and Russell to complete the circuit in 1:33.35.

Also of note, Russell split the 50 free and 100 free with a cumulative margin of 0.00 in between his two winning anchor swims.  In the 50 free, he finished second to Simic of ECU by a slim .02 seconds in 20.99, before coming back after the first diving break to win the 100 free by the exact same margin over the same opponent, stopping the clock in 46.13 seconds.  The final winner of the day for the Tribe was sophomore Justin Barden (Gordonsville, Va.), who won the 100 back in 51.29 seconds.  He also finished second in the 200 back in 1:50.26, and swam a lifetime-best 47.52 to lead-off the Tribe's third-place 400 free relay.

Rounding out the notables were two more silver-medalists for W&M, including the senior Rittenhouse, who finished a season-best second in the 100 fly with a time of 51.47 seconds.  Sophomore Andrew Nyce (Vienna, Va.) was second in the 200 breast, clocking 2:05.24.

With the regular season complete, William and Mary turns its attention to the year-end invitationals and championships.  First up will be the Cavalier Invitational in two weeks, Feb. 14-15, which will both serve as the end-of-year meet for the swimmers who don't make the CAA squad, as well as a tune-up for select members of the conference team.