WATERVILLE, Me. -
Mason Polaner '24 and
Harrison Hong '25 each finished first in two evnets on Saturday to highlight the day for Wesleyan men's swimming & diving at Colby. In team scoring, the Cardinals were downed by the Mules, 193.5-106.5, as Wesleyan moves to 4-7 on the season while Colby improves to 4-2 on the season.
Polaner made history on Saturday, in the 1000 free he swam a 9:55.91 to capture first place as well as the pool record at Colby. He followed that up with another winning performance, taking first place in the 500 free as his time of 4:45.82 was well over two seconds faster than the runner-up in the event.
Hong, meanwhile, continued to dominate in his signature event as he earned first place in the 50 and 100 butterfly. Starting with the 100, Hong touched in 52.05 seconds to easily defeat Daniel Wang (Colby) by almost a full second. Hong then bested his teammate
Eric Tran '23 by a mere 0.23 seconds as Hong's time of 23.93 seconds in the 50 butterfly was good enough to best Tran's mark of 24.16 seconds.
Tran still managed to score a big win on the day as he was first in the 400 IM with a time of 4:15.78, besting Spencer Cohen of Colby (4:16.44) by less than a second.
Other strong performances on the day came from
Richard Ettinger '23 who took second in the 50 back with a time of 25.04 seconds, just 0.03 seconds short of first place finisher Caleb Bitting of Colby.
Andrew Kim '25 was second-best in the 50 breast with a time of 28.42 seconds,
Jeremy Kim '23 was runner-up in the 100 breast as he clocked in at 1:01.99 and
Jake Rybczyk '24 took second place in the 3-meter dive with a score of 216.52.
Wesleyan heads into Senior Day next weekend as the Cardinals will host Conn. College in what is the final tune-up prior to the NESCAC Championships. The Cardinals and Camels start their dual meet at 2 PM from the Wesleyan Natatorium.
