At the end of their 2021 season, the Binghamton men’s swimming and diving teams won the America East (AE) Championship title after edging out defending champions UMBC in the final few events of the meet. However, the Bearcats were unable to best the Retrievers in 2022, leaving the men in second place and the women stuck in fourth overall.

“The men are disappointed coming up a bit short,” said Binghamton head coach Jerry Cummiskey. “UMBC swam really well. We far and away exceed how we competed, our times, performances this year compared to last. I don’t know how much more we really could have done.”

The four-day event kicked off on Thursday with senior Christopher Egan winning the 3-meter diving event with a score of 291.45 after posting 269.55 to top the preliminary event earlier in the day. Before Egan took gold, however, the Binghamton 800 freestyle relay won its first-ever AE title. The four athletes combined to produce a finishing time of 6:34.62 to break the previous school record by about eight seconds. The two victories propelled the men’s team to the top of the leaderboards at the conclusion of the first day. The women also sat in front despite not winning any of Thursday’s events.

“Our relays across the board, I think we had school records in four of the five relays,” Cummiskey said. “I think we had a scoreboard malfunction that might’ve robbed us from going five-for-five, but the relays were great. It was a top-to-bottom effort there.”

In the second day of the tournament, Binghamton started to fall behind. During Friday’s events, UMBC captured three titles to position itself at the top of the men’s leaderboard. Binghamton’s only response was a single individual victory to keep it in contention with the Retrievers. The lone title for BU came courtesy of sophomore Liam Murphy, who registered a time of 4:28.20 in the 500 freestyle. This marked Murphy’s second-straight conference title in the event as well as his second gold medal in the competition after anchoring the men’s 800 freestyle relay that won on Thursday.

At the end of Friday’s session, the women still hadn’t recorded any individual titles. The Bearcats sat in fourth place and were over 80 points behind crowd leaders UNH.

Binghamton opened the scoring on Saturday evening in the men’s 1-meter diving event. In the competition, Egan completed his AE sweep after scoring 304.90 points to earn his second gold medal of the tournament as well as the Most Outstanding Diver title. The decisive victory from the diving board gave BU another leg up over UMBC who were starting to lose some ground.

Back on the swimming side, two Bearcats posted individual titles. The first of the two victories came in the 400 IM event, as sophomore Henry Shemet clocked in at 3:53.14 to top the podium. Not only did Shemet’s time in the event break a 12-year-old meet record, but also a BU program record. The Bearcat’s record-breaking performance was later followed by senior Ryan Board’s victory in the 100 breaststroke. Board’s time of 54.30 broke his own record which he set at last year’s competition. The win earned him his third-straight title in the event.

While the women’s side still struggled to keep with its AE competition, sophomore Maddie Hoover placed third in the 200 freestyle with a time of 1:51.56. Although the time didn’t win her the event, her preliminary time of 1:50.00 broke the BU program record in the 200 freestyle.

“We talk about the men and the men competing to win the conference; it’s an easier headline than the women there, but I think our women had a great meet for where we are right now,” Cummiskey said. “I’m really happy with how our women competed top to bottom.”

On Sunday, Binghamton approached the final stretch of the competition. Although the men’s side posted four second-place finishes, UMBC swept multiple events on the night, allowing it to grow its lead out to 921.5 points as the Bearcats sat in second with 874.5. NJIT was over 200 points behind Binghamton in third.

“We know there are places we’re stronger than [UMBC] and they’re stronger than us,” Cummiskey said. “I think we swam really well. We need to dig a little deeper and have a couple of things go our way … We certainly left a few things on the table, but UMBC swam really well.”

The women were unable to claw their way out of fourth, tallying 459 points as UNH ran away with the title with 814.5. This is the third year in a row the Wildcats’ have come away with the AE Championship.

The BU men’s team ends its season with a 6-3 overall record which includes a first-place team sweep at the Rhode Island Invitational. The women conclude their season with a 4-7 record.

“I’m really proud of the effort we had and the culture that we’ve been able to develop on both sides,” Cummiskey said. “We’re happy with the direction of the program. Everything we do swimming and diving-wise is a build-up to be at our best this weekend, but all of those stepping stones along the way have meaning and have value … We’re excited about the future. We don’t graduate a ton of seniors this year, we lose some good ones, but our goal is to be right back there competing on the men’s side and I think our women’s team, between the young talent we have on the team continuing to improve and the class we’ve got coming in next year, the women are going to take a significant step forward.”