Worcester, Mass – UMBC maintained its dominance in America East Conference men's swimming and diving.
The Retrievers held off hard-charging Binghamton to win its second consecutive league title and the 14th in 16 conference campaigns in the four-day meet held at WPI.
The team came away with the big prize, but senior
Niklas Weigelt and sophomore
Oliver Gassmann earned individual honors. Weigelt, the 2021 and 2022 AE Swimmer of the Meet, earned the David Alexander Award, which is presented to the senior that amasses the most points in four seasons.
Gassmann took the baton from Weigelt and was named the 2023 Swimmer of the Meet. The Pennington, N.J. triumphed in the 100 and 200 butterfly events, but also stunned many by winning the 50 yard freestyle event. He also swam on both medley relay gold medal winning quartets and the ultimate race, a UMBC record-setting victory in the 400 freestyle relay.
Head Coach
Matt Donovan and his staff of assistants
Patrick Malone and
Jackie Whitty and Head Diving Coach
Jeff Fisher earned Men's Staff of the Year honors.
Junior
Dani Nicusan also continued his dominance in Worcester, posting the lone sub-2:00.00 time in the 200 yard breaststroke, recording a mark of 1:57.52. He won the event for the third consecutive year and dropped 0.04 of his 2022 meet record-setting time.
Not to be outdone by his teammate, Gassmann won his third individual gold of the meet as he posted a comfortable victory in the 200 butterfly. He made some real noise in the prelims on Saturday afternoon, setting a new meet and pool record with a time of 1:44.93. Senior
Ethan Riser edged
Binghamton's Jake Vecchio by .04 seconds to earn the bronze and senior
Zacharias Pavlou placed sixth.
Sophomore JJ Chapman earned bronze in the 200 yard backstroke, while junior
Max Casey-Bolanos posted a strong sixth place effort.
In a tight finish to the 100 yard freestyle, three Retrievers touched in the top six, with senior Weigelt earning a spot on the medal stand as the third-place finisher. Sophomore
Christian Coleman took fourth, while junior
Bode Neale finished in a tie for fifth place.
To put an exclamation point on the title, the quartet of Gassmann, Nicusan, Weigelt and junior
Bode Neale set a conference, meet and WPI pool mark of 2:57.45 to edge Binghamton by over a second.
The Retrievers amassed 855.5 points, while Binghamton earned 792.5. Newcomer Bryant proved to be a strong team, recording 615 points in the six-team field.
"I have never been a part of a meet that was more of a team win than this one," said Donovan. "This conference is so deep and every team keeps raising the bar. It took our entire roster to win this meet. Hats off to every team here. I could not be more proud of our team."
Thank you to Senior Associate Athletics Director and Swimming and Diving Sport Supervisor Gary Wohlstetter for all of his assistance in covering this meet, including taking the group and individual photographs of our finalists.
