"It was one of the less exciting meets of the season. There was not a great deal of competition and it was a short event format," said Head Coach Nick Nichols. "But there were a few close races, like [Mike] Pohorylo's ['04] 100 breast and [Rob] Winograd's ['02] 100 free."
The men started off the meet with a win in the 200 medley relay, as the team of Russell Lang '03, Pohorylo, Jeff Sunderland '03 and Chris Morton '02 took first. Unchallenged in the 1000 freestyle event, Jeff swimmers Winograd, Dan Gach '05 and Rich O'Brien '02 easily swept first, second and third place. Steve Shapiro '04 claimed first in the 200 freestyle and was followed closely by Amherst's star breaststroker, Pohorylo, who hadn't swam the event in several years.
In the 50 freestyle, Chuck Clinton '05 was touched out by a mere second by Colby's Nick Walendziak. The Amherst men suffered another loss in the 100 individual medley that followed, though Pat Kennedy '03, Dan Morash '04 and Colin Porter '05 managed to pull out second, third and fourth place finishes for the Jeff squad.
"Kennedy and Morash had some good swims that will seed them pretty well for NESCACs," Nichols said.
The men finished identically in the 100 butterfly, with Morton, Sunderland and Nick Federico '05 taking second, third and fourth. Winograd and Kennedy just missed first in the 100 freestyle, too, taking second and third, but Lang came back with a win in the 100 backstroke.
Shapiro and Gach took first and second in the 500 freestyle and, in one of the most exciting swims of the day, Pohorylo snatched first in the 100 breaststroke by a mere three-tenths of a second.
"It wasn't necessarily a great time for him," Nichols explained. "But Pohorylo never loses when the heat is on."
The men finished off with a win in the 800 freestyle relay, the team of Clinton, Morton, Shapiro and Winograd claiming first.
The men are looking forward to a small break from competition, as they will spend the next three weeks tapering for NESCACs which will be held March 1-3 at Wesleyan University.
Any Nationals qualifiers will then prepare rigorously for the NCAA Championships three weeks later, on March 21-23, in Oxford, Ohio. Current team members who swam at last year's Nationals in Buffalo, N.Y., include Pohorylo, Winograd and Shapiro, all of whom are favored to qualify again, along with Morton and possibly Kennedy.
"I expect to see some really fast swims this year at NESCACs," Nichols said. "Most of the men have had great seasons, in terms of training, and we've built a pretty solid base for taper. I think the Amherst men have some exciting races ahead of them."