CHICAGO, Ill. -- Rookie Marc Eder (Princeton, N.J./Lawrenceville) enjoyed a breakout meet this weekend as the Brandeis University men's swimming and diving team finished in eighth place at the University Athletic Association (UAA) swimming and diving championships at the University of Chicago. Eder had three finishes in the top 16, all of which produced times that were the second-best in Judges' history in their event. Brandeis finished with 416.5 points at the meet.
Eder's top finish came on the final day of competition, when his seventh-place finish in the 200-yard breaststroke was the Judges' top finish of the meet. He missed an NCAA Championship ‘B' cut by 0.17 seconds in the preliminaries, shaving more than seven seconds off his lifetime best with a mark of 2:08.29 before posting a time of 2:08.70 in the finals. On Day Two of the meet, Eder had his other two top finishes, as he placed 14th in the 100 breast, where his time of 59.44 seconds in the prelims was the fastest non-relay time in school history. He swam 59.96 seconds in the finals. In his first individual race of the meet, Eder finished 16th in the 400-yard individual medley, shaving more than 15 seconds of his personal best time in the prelims to swim 4:10.77, while coming in 4:12.18 in the finals.
The Judges had two other top-10 finishes. Junior standout James Liu (Longmeadow, Mass./Longmeadow) was 10th in the 100-yard freestyle with a time of 47.12 seconds in the finals, while sophomore Aaron Bennett (Setauket, N.Y./Ward Melville) tied for 10th in the 200-yard butterfly with a time of 1:57.07 in the finals. Bennett's mark of 1:56.77 in the prelims was another near-record, the second-best in Judges' history, setting a personal record by nearly two seconds. Liu and Bennett combined for Brandeis's best individual event at the meet, taking 11th and 13th, respectively in the 100-yard butterfly with times of 52.36 and 53.61 seconds, respectively. Liu's 52.12 in the prelims was third in Brandeis history. Liu also broke the two-minute barrier for the first time in his career in the 200-yard IM with a time of 1:58.28 in the preliminaries, taking 23rd place with a time of 1:59.05.
Senior Robert Morse (Hope, R.I./Bishop Hendricken) had a fine showing for the Judges in the distance freestyle events. He took 18th place in the 1,650 with a time of 17:03.28 and 20th in the 500-yard freestyle with a time of 4:49.85 after missing a new school record by just 0.10 second in the prelims when he swam a 4:48.27.