BUSDT women edged by Colby

Kylie Herman '19 (photo by Sportspix)
Kylie Herman '19 (photo by Sportspix)

WALTHAM, Mass. – The Brandeis University swimming and diving teams lost a pair of heartbreaking narrow decisions to visiting Colby College yesterday in their first true home meet of the season. The Judges fell by two points on the men's side, 145-143, and by three on the women's, 149-146.

For the Brandeis women, the Judges won eight of 12 events, starting with the 200 medley relay team of rookies Audrey Kim (Livingston, N.J. / Livingston), Annie Huang (Chapel Hill, N.C. / East Chapel Hill),  Rachel Goldblatt (Atlanta, Ga. / Galloway School) and senior Amy Sheinhait (Framingham, Mass./Framingham) with a time of 1:57.68.

Kim and Huang went on to add two individual wins in their specialties. Kim won the 100 and 200 backstroke races in 1:04.20 and 2:19.96, respectively. Huang captured the breaststroke events, swimming 1:12.63 in the 100 and 2:39.85 in the 200. She won both races by more than 1.2 seconds.

Also picking up multiple wins on the day was junior Kylie Herman (Weston, Fla. / Cypress Bay), who took the 200 freestyle in 2:03.68 and the 500 in 5:34.72, winning by a margin of 3.5 seconds. The Judges' closest win of the day ironically came in the longest race, as rookie Talia Bornstein (Scottsdale, Ariz. / Chaparral) out-touched her Colby opponent by just 0.13 seconds to win the 1,000 free in 11:25.00.

Colby was able to take the women's meet with a numbers advantage in diving and by capturing first and third places in the 400 free relay to close out the meet.   

On the men's side, Brandeis won 10 of 12 events, but the Mules were able to keep it close enough to squeak out the win.

The Judges produced the day's only triple winner, sophomore Tamir Zitelny (Syosset, N.Y./Syosset). Zitelny swept the backstroke races, edging his nearest competitor in the 100 by eight-hundredths of a second with a time of 54.06 seconds. He took the 200 fly by a slightly larger margin, closer to one full second, with a mark of 2:01.05. Zitelny then proved his versatility by capturing the 100 butterfly with a time of 52.78 seconds.

Rookie Richard Selznick (Las Vegas, Nev. / Palo Verde High School) earned a pair of wins, using a whopping seven-second margin in the 1000 with a time of 10:07.75, and adding a win in the 200 fly with a mark of 2:03.87, just under three seconds. He also placed second in the 500 free in 4:57.64.

Two other rookies added multiple wins. Marcelo Ohno-Machado (San Diego, Calif. / Torrey Pines) took two shorter distance freestyle events, with a time of 50.05 seconds in the 100 and 1:50.38 in the 200, both winning by about eight-tenths of a second. Daniel Wohl (Chapel Hill, N.C. / East Chapel Hill) swept the breaststroke events with times of 1:02.19 in the 100 and 2:15.19 seconds in the 200, the latter good for a four-second win. The team's final win was courtesy rookie Chase Chen (Villanova, Penn. / The Hill School) in the 50 free with a time of 22.56 seconds.

Colby ultimately was able to pull out the meet with a key 1-2-3 sweep in the 200 IM, the next-to-last race of the meet. Brandeis won the 400 free relay with a time of 3:16.30 from the team of Wohl, Chen, Ohno-Machado and Zitelny, but the Mules'  second-place finish was enough to give the visitors the win. 

The Judges return to action on January 20th with a dual meet against Keene State and Bridgewater State.