After four days of competing, the Binghamton men’s swimming and diving team came away with a second-place finish for the second year in a row while the women’s team came away with fifth place.
“I’m proud of the way we did,” said BU head coach Brad Smith. “I’m proud of the way our guys and girls went out and performed. We had a couple of key players get sick before championships, and some were able to muscle through and some weren’t, so we were down a couple of people.”
Despite being down a few people, several members of the team performed well. Most notably, freshman diver Amanda McGraw captured first place in the one-meter dive with a score of 241.55, making her the first Binghamton women’s diver to get the conference’s top individual award. McGraw also took second in the three-meter dive with a score of 230.75 and was crowned Women’s Most Outstanding Diver of the meet. McGraw’s teammate, sophomore diver Sophia Howard, was right behind McGraw in the one-meter dive, capturing second place with a score of 237.15.
“Amanda McGraw was phenomenal on the one-meter board,” Smith said. “This is the second year in a row now that we’ve had a diver take first in conference championship.”
Sophomore Kaitlyn Smolar was also a force for the women’s team and was off of the team’s records by less than one second in all of her individual events. Smolar took third in both the 500 and 1650 free with times of 4:55.92 and 17:08.63 respectively. Smolar also registered fourth in the 200 free with a time of 1:51.58. Smolar was just .22 seconds away from the 500 program record set by Tin Wai Siu in 2011, and was only .04 seconds shy of breaking Lauren Flowers’ 2014 program record of 17:08.59.
McGraw, Howard and Smolar were all awarded all-conference honors for placing in the top three. Additionally, two other BU women’s swimmers earned this honor: sophomore Erica Bachiller and senior Brooke Pettis. Bachiller claimed third in the 100 back with a time of 56.25 while Pettis finished third in the 200 fly with a time of 2:03.83. Pettis was also looking to defend her first-place finish in the 100 fly from last year’s conference, but trouble hit when she was disqualified after a false start during the preliminaries.
“I was sad for Brooke because she’s the defending conference champion, and it’s her senior meet, the last time to swim the 100 fly,” Smith said. “I was sad for her that she got disqualified in the event she was probably looking forward to the most.”
Despite being disqualified in the 100 fly, Pettis had another opportunity to swim the 100 fly in the 400 medley relay. Pettis competed in the relay with Bachiller, junior Sydney Atendido and junior Olivia Santos, and the squad came in third, breaking the team record with a time of 3:47.44. The record was previously set at 3:48.87.
On the men’s side, seven Bearcats were awarded all-conference honors. Sophomore diver David Walters claimed two second-place finishes in the one-meter dive and the three-meter dive with scores of 277.40 and 276.65, respectively. Walters’ fellow divers, senior Colin Coughlan and freshman Chris Egan, also placed in the top eight in both the one-meter and three-meter dive.
Senior Alex Brion was influential in the team’s success. Brion captured third in the 50 free with a time of 20.79 and took second in the 100 free with a time of 44.83.
“Alex was a stud, as he has been for us for three of his four years here at Binghamton,” Smith said. “His 44.83 in the 100 freestyle was amazing.”
Brion was also a member of the 200 medley relay, the 400 medley relay and the 400 freestyle relay, which all claimed second-place. Swimming with Brion in the 200 medley relay was sophomore Shane Morris, sophomore Patrick Wilson and senior Matthew Devito. Brion’s relay split of 19.75 is the third-fastest relay split in program history. Brion swam the 400 medley relay with teammates senior Zach Kaplan, freshman Ryan Board and Devito, while he swam the 400 freestyle relay with Wilson, junior Ross Bernstein and junior Tyler Meyers.
“Alex is going to go down as one of the greatest swimmers in men’s swimming history,” Smith said.
The America East Championship concludes the teams’ 2018-19 seasons. The Bearcats end the year with eight broken records and will be back in action next fall in hopes of recreating this season’s success.