After being swept by Cornell on Friday night, the Binghamton men’s and women’s swimming and diving teams swept Canisius on Saturday afternoon at the Patricia A. Saunders Aquatic Center. The women earned a 225-58 victory, while the men brought home a 207-87 win.
“We’ve been swimming well,” said Binghamton head coach Jerry Cummiskey. “Tough night [on Friday] competition-wise with Cornell but I think we turned around well and had a great day today. Having a lot of fans, parents, other athletes and students here just makes the environment that much better. When the kids are having fun and having that great environment, we do better.”
Coming off an America East (AE) swimmer of the week award, senior Maddie Hoover pulled a hat trick in individual events on Saturday. The Bearcat netted three freestyle victories, winning the 50 in 24.91, taking gold in the 200 in 1:56.44 and clocking in a 5:15.72 to get first in the 500. Hoover was also part of the first-place women’s 200 free relay team with freshman Ava Olsian, sophomore Maria Pignatelli and senior Molly Greeley, winning in 1:39.27.
“I was very excited to be here,” Hoover said. “I was very excited to swim with my teammates, and I always want to do my best so that we can get points and so that we all come together and try and swim as hard as we can as a team.”
Four Bearcat women’s competitors also pulled off double wins on Saturday. Sophomore Olivia Philbrick swept the backstroke events with times of 58.44 in the 100 and 2:09.37 in the 200. Meanwhile, freshmen Juliette Phillips and Haley Nowak earned respective sweeps in the IM and butterfly events. Phillips won the 100 IM and 200 IM in 1:01.42 and 2:12.31 while Nowak clocked in a 58.39 and a 2:09.84 for first place in the 100 and 200 butterfly events. On the diving side of things, sophomore Elizabeth Tirado won the one-meter and three-meter diving events with respective scores of 239.48 and 250.13.
Pulling off solo wins were Greeley with a time of 54.00 in the 100 free, and senior Courtney Moane and junior Lauren Kuzma split the breaststroke events. Moane won the 100 with a time of 1:06.07 while Kuzma punched in a 2:23.40 for gold in the 200. The quartet of Philbrick, Moane, Nowak and Greeley also took a relay win with a time of 1:47.36 in the 200 medley. These combined efforts led the Bearcat women to break their two-meet loss streak with a commanding win.
“I think it was definitely a confidence booster,” Hoover said. “We were all very happy after this meet. It’s really nice not just to win a meet, but to win a meet at your home pool. To have your parents and your friends in the stands … I think it was a very good ending to the dual meet season heading into Brown.”
Spearheading the men’s victory was a trio of double-event winners. Junior Elijah Lanfear won the short-distance freestyle events with times of 21.07 in the 50 and 46.77 in the 100, while senior Jake Vecchio swept the 100 and 200 butterfly events with timesheets of 51.54 and 1:55.34, respectively. Recording the first wins of his BU career was freshman Harrison Lambert in the 200 free and 500 free, punching in respective times of 1:46.14 and 4:46.88.
“[Lambert] was able to kind of swim his own races and do what he needs to do,” Cummiskey said. “Which was probably good to get that kind of monkey off his back of getting his first wins. He’s had a lot of really good swims so far this season where he’s just kind of gotten beat … So maybe more of a relief for him to finally cross that hurdle, but he’s gonna have plenty more.”
Also putting together individual wins Saturday was senior Eric Kroon in the 100 breast with a time of 59.13 and senior Henry Shemet whose time of 1:56.41 secured the gold in the 200 IM. Meanwhile, taking diving wins was sophomore David Marshall in the one-meter with a score of 252.90 and freshman Dylan Norby in the three-meter with a score of 275.40. On the men’s side, BU also netted two other relay wins en route to its 207-87 victory.
“If we’re gonna achieve what we want to do as a team, it’s gonna be on everybody to be where they need to be at the end,” Cummiskey said.
BU now sets its sights on the Brown Invitational — the squad’s final meet of the fall season — beginning on Friday, Nov. 17, and concluding on Sunday, Nov. 19. The first event is to be determined and will be hosted at the Katherine Moran Coleman Aquatics Center in Providence, Rhode Island.