Waterville, Maine - The Colby Swimming & Diving teams started off the 2024-25 campaign in a great way on Saturday afternoon hosting Amherst. The men put up strong swims and dives and were able to win five races and the 1m diving but fell to the Mammoths 178 to 116. The women were able to do something that has never been done in Colby Swimming & Diving history and were able to achieve their first ever victory over Amherst 151.5 to 147.5 . The Amherst women came into the season ranked 22nd in NCAA Division III.
It was a great victory for the women and an overall team effort. Coach
Tom Burton said "We challenged the teams this year to take advantage of every opportunity and make sure they went after everything." From the first race the Mules took that to heart and won three out of the first four events. It started with the 200 Medley Relay team of
Alexis Coates '28,
Eliza Marco '28,
Lexi Asch '27 and
Lily Moy '25 with a win in the 200 Medley Relay. The Mules won two of the next three events, including a win by
Zoe Buzzelli '28 in the 200 free and a podium sweep in the 100 backstroke by Coates,
Gabriella Landau '25 and
Sarah Michael '27. Two events later, Asch kept the winning ways going in the 200 Butterfly. Another 1,2 finish followed by Coates and Michael in the 200 Backstroke.
In the back half of the meet the score went back and forth and was helped by
Avery Rappaport's second place on both the 1m and 3m boards. Asch continued her winning ways and Colby went gold (Asch), bronze (
Caitlin Lacey '28), and fifth place (
Aria Kapoor '28) in the 100 Butterfly. The meet came down to the final relay where they needed to win and get at least a 3rd place by the B-squad to pull of the victory. The team of Marco, Buzelli, Moy and Landau swam to first and
Lucy Mackey '28,
Savannah Lombardi '28,
Emma Cheung '27 and Coates delivered for 3rd to seal the victory. A great day and a first ever for Colby Mules Swimming & Diving.
On the men's side there were a lot of hard-fought races that came down to touches. Spencer Cohen '25 was victorious in both the 100 and 200 Backstrokes while Carson Rehkopf '25 won the 200 freestyle. Other victories were collected by Brandon Xiong ' 26 in the 50 Free and Ivan Knoepflmacher '25 won the 1m Dive and
was second in the 3m Dive by less than two points.
The final event of the meet, the 200 Freestyle Relay, came down to the last leg. Xiong, Brandon Morrison '27, Rehkopf and Michael Fiechter pulled off the victory with Fiechter having the fastest split of the entire field.
Overall it was a great way to start the season and the Mules are looking forward to keeping it going nest Sunday (11/23) when they face off against Hamilton and Trinity at 11 am.
