The Brandeis University swimming and diving team began and ended their meet schedule for the 2020-2021 year last weekend, with an impressive six school records being set in the process.
Friday, both the men's and women's team faced off against cross-town rival Bentley University. For the women, sophomore Bailey Gold (Berkeley Heights, NJ/ Governor Livingston) shined, winning both the 100-yard freestyle and breaking her own school record in the 200-yard butterfly in 2:06.79. Other winners included sophomore Ema Rennie (Dublin, OH/ Dublin Scioto) with a 24.80 seconds in the 50-yard freestyle, sophomore Aria Smith (Elkridge, MD/ St. Timothy's School) with a 1:06.01 in the 100-yard individual medley, and 200-yard freestyle relay consisting of Gold, Gazelle Umbay (North Hills, CA/ Sierra Canyon School), Maya Haubrich (Grayslake, IL/ Grayslake).
The record-breaking day continued on the men's side with freshman Sam Dienstag (Wilmette, IL/ New Trier) taking down Dan Wohl's 500-yard freestyle record in a time of 4:32.94. Another impressive freshman, George Zhu (Sydney, Australia/ Knox Grammar), came within six-hundredths of a second of Chris Pai's 17-year-old 50-yard freestyle record with a winning time of 21.10 seconds. The men also took both relays with the 200-yard medley relay consisting of Benton Ferebee (Germantown, TN/ Memphis University School), Brendon Lu (Basking Ridge, NJ/ Ridge High School), Austin Shih (Brentwood, TN/ Brentwood), and Zhu, and the 200-yard freestyle relay consisting of Zhu, Ido Petel (New York, NY/ Frank McCourt), Ferebee, and Dienstag. Other winners included Dienstag with a 1:41.43 in the 200-yard freestyle, freshman Maor Shir (Wyckoff, NJ/ Indian Hills) with a 53.10 seconds in the 100-yard butterfly, Ferebee with a 53.72 seconds in the 100-yard backstroke, and Lu with a 58.88 seconds in the 100-yard breaststroke.
Saturday was a BUSDT intrasquad meet and saw four more school records fall. Dienstag continued his distance free dominance from the previous day by breaking both the 1000-yard freestyle and 1650-yard freestyle school records. Dienstag went a 15:40.19 in his 1650 to break Max Fabian's 2015 record by almost 26 seconds and went a 9:28.53 in the first 1000 of the 1650 to break that record, also previously held by Fabian, by over 15 seconds. Gold also broke another record, taking down Angela Chui's 12-year-old record in the 200-yard freestyle with a 1:56.39. Rennie broke Gold's school record from last year in the 50-yard butterfly with a 26.55 seconds.
This weekend was a great way to end a difficult season for the Brandeis swimming and diving teams. There were a total of 25 best times from 11 different swimmers, which truly shows the resilience of the team and Brandeis athletes as a whole.