After its annual green vs. white meet, the Binghamton men’s and women’s swimming and diving teams opened up their fall season at the Bucknell Invitational over the weekend — with the women placing first overall and the men taking home second.

“We had our inner squad a couple of weeks ago, which went really well,” said Binghamton head coach Jerry Cummiskey. “But we’re just competing up against ourselves there, so not a ton of expectations or pressure. We were hoping just to continue to kind of build off what we did there and see some of the same things when we go up against somebody else. I think we probably exceeded that a little bit.”

Leading the way for the Bearcat women Saturday in individual events was a freshman Haley Nowak, in her debut for BU. Nowak swept the fly events, winning the 100 and 200 with a time of 57.13 and 2:05.52, respectively. Meanwhile, freshman Juliette Phillips got a win of her own in the 200 IM, clocking in at 2:07.84.

“There’s always a little bit of an unknown with your freshmen coming in and how immediate of an impact are they going to make or how are they going to adjust to how we train and college life,” Cummiskey said. “But our hope was that our freshmen would help us immediately, and if nothing else help us dig deeper and fill in some spots. But [Phillips], obviously, won the 200 IM and can do a lot of different things very strongly. [Nowak] looked great yesterday and will be an immediate impact.”

The returning Bearcat women also put together some wins at Bucknell. In the breaststroke contests, sophomore Maria Pignatelli took the 100 with a time of 1:04.38 while junior Lauren Kuzma completed the Bearcat sweep by finishing the 200 in 2:20.79. Meanwhile, sophomore Olivia Philbrick won the 100 back in 56.73, the 50 freestyle was won by senior Molly Greeley with a time of 24.03 and senior Maddie Hoover won the 100 freestyle with a time of 52.91.

“[The upperclassmen] have been kind of stalwarts for us,” Cummiskey said. “So I think that group finished on a pretty strong note last year. I don’t think we necessarily started off as great last fall. So our hope was that we can kind of start ahead of schedule — or ahead of where we were last fall — and build off of the end of last season to really kind of take a step forward this year.”

Following up on his America East (AE) all-conference season last year, junior Elijah Lanfear won three individual events for the men at Bucknell. Lanfear captured gold in the men’s 100 backstroke with a time of 49.59, clocked in a 20.57 in the 50 freestyle and finished in 1:40.89 in the 200 freestyle. Senior Eric Kroon swept the breast contests for BU, finishing the 100 in 56.26 and punching in a 2:06.34 in the 200. Also taking individual first place was senior Henry Shemet, whose time of 45.58 tied him for first in the 100 freestyle.

“We want our guys — especially our top guys — to perform and be ready to compete, and we need that to have the success that we want to have,” Cummiskey said. “So the men have done well. As a whole, they’ve, I think, been ahead of where we were last year in the fall. They’re working hard. They’re a close group.”

Both sides also took home wins in their respective 200-yard freestyle relays. For the women, a quartet of freshmen Ava Olsian, Pignatelli, Hoover and Greeley earned first-place honors with a time of 1:36.18. Meanwhile, taking gold with a time of 1:22.10 for the men were senior Sandon Karinsky, sophomore Liam Preston, Lanfear and Shemet.

“I think the relay is always our kind of litmus test of where your team can be,” Cummiskey said. “And we’ve got a lot of options for all of our relays of who could be on them, so to have the success we had with multiple relays yesterday was nice to see. We’ll be interested to see how things play out.”

BU will continue its season with two meets next weekend, starting at Holy Cross on Friday, Oct. 27. First race is set for 5 p.m. at Hart Center Pool in Worcester, Massachusetts.