The Binghamton University men’s and women’s swimming and diving teams competed against Atlantic 10 defending champions UMass this past Sunday at the Patricia A. Saunders Aquatic Center in the West Gym.

The Bearcats dropped the meet on both sides, with the men losing 171-129 and the women losing 192-108. The meet matched Binghamton head coach Sean Clark against his alma mater and the school at which he was a volunteer assistant from 1994-1996 and lead assistant coach from 2000-2003.

The Minutemen were impressive throughout the whole meet, winning 22 of 32 possible events.

Once again, the Bearcat men put up an impressive performance, led by stellar freshman Jason Chen. In a performance that mirrored those of former Bearcat swimmers Trevor Stone and David Holmes, Chen was a triple-winner on Sunday. The freshman sensation captured the 200- and 500-free as well as the 200-IM.

‘Jason shined today,’ said Binghamton head coach Sean Clark in a BU press release. ‘He had some really quick swims and really came up big for us.’

Not to be overlooked was the clutch performances by the Bearcats upperclassmen. Junior Andrew Palumbo was a dual winner in the 100- and 200-breast and junior Brenno Varanda added a win in the 1,000-free.

‘It was a very competitive meet and we fared far better against them than we did in last year’s meet,’ Clark said. ‘They just had more firepower.’

On the women’s side, the freshmen showed BU’s bright future by capturing four individual events.

Freshman Danielle Gallo was strong, winning both the 100- and 200-breast in impressive times of 1:09.48 and 2:31.97, respectively. She was not the only impressive freshman, with Kelsey Anderson and Brittany Detlef also winning individual events. Anderson won the 1,000-free and Detlef captured the 200-fly.

UMass sophomore Juan Moliere won the 50- and 100-yard freestyles for the Minutemen.

The Bearcats have started the season on a slide, having yet to win a meet on either side, but they have had a very tough schedule, swimming against both the defending AE and Atlantic 10 champions.

‘I am proud of where we are at this point in the season and I am really looking forward to see what we can turn in next week at Bucknell,’ Clark said.

The Bearcats travel to Lewisburg, Pa., to compete in the Bucknell Invitational this weekend.