The Rensselaer men’s swimming & diving team won its second consecutive Liberty League Championship February 24.
The Engineers’ repeat as conference champions is the third time in four years that the red and white have hoisted the hardware. The Rensselaer staff, led by head coach Shannon O’Brien, was named Staff of the Year. Joining O’Brien are Maria Coomaraswamy-Falkenstein, Rob MacLeod, and Michael Sorrentino.
Sophomore Trevor Maxfield led the Engineers on the final day of competition with a first-place finish in the 1650 freestyle. Maxfield’s time of 16:15.82 was a NCAA B-cut time and a new school record.
In the 200 breaststroke, Cory Madalena swam a NCAA B-cut time of 2:04.09 during the preliminaries for a new school record. The sophomore went on to win the event in the finals with a time of 2:04.21. Freshman Mark Mulder took fourth in the finals (2:05.83), while sophomore Eric Xu (2:10.82) and junior Charly Blazy (2:11.06) finished in sixth and seventh place, respectively.
Maxfield and Madalena became the first Rensselaer men to hit NCAA B-cut times this season.
The 400 freestyle relay team of Everett McNair, Spencer Marquardt, Graham Zola, and John Alberta placed first with a new league and school record of 3:05.26. The RPI men swept all four relay events over the course of the league meet.
Meanwhile in the 100 free, Alberta took first with a time of 46.04. Following the junior’s performance were Zola (46.69) and Marquardt (47.88) in third and eighth place, respectively.
Rounding out the day were freshman Nicos Prokopiou and junior Noah Pan in the 200 backstroke with a second-place time of 1:54.41 and a third-place finish of 1:55.25, respectively.
The diving team will prepare to travel to the NCAA Division III Diving Regional at Middlebury College on March 2-3 beginning at 5:30 p.m. and 1 p.m., respectively. The 2018 NCAA Division III Swimming & Diving Championships are set to take place March 21-24 in Indianapolis, Indiana, at the IU Natatorium at IUPUI.
