WORCESTER, Mass. – On the second day of action at the 2024 Gompei Invitational at WPI, the Brandeis University swimming and diving teams put seven swimmers in to 'A' Finals with top 10 performances. The Judges posted four all-time top-10 swims in the process. The Judges finished the day with 1699 points, in seventh place of 10 teams.
 
Leading the way today was the Judges' men's 50-yard butterfly squad of junior Eric Xiao (College Station, Texas/ AM Consolidated) and first-year Peter Mou (Chestnut Hill, Mass./Brimmer and May School), the one of only two events in which Brandeis sent two swimmers to the 'A' finals. Xiao finished in seventh place with a time of 23.38 seconds, while his time of 23.14 seconds in the prelims was the second-fastest in school history by two-tenths of a second. Mou also produced a top-10 time in program history in the prelims with a mark of 23.69 seconds, good for eighth. In the final race, Mou placed 10^th with a time of 23.93 seconds.
 
Xiao was the only Brandeis swimmer to reach two 'A' finals, coming in ninth in the 100-yard breaststroke with a time of 58.96 seconds.
 
The men's 50-yard backstroke also saw two top-10 finishes. Sophomore Riley Pasicaran (Kennewick, Wash./Hanford) placed seventh in the event with a time of 25.78 seconds, while junior AJ Martinez (North Miami Beach, Fla./NSU University School) was ninth in 26.12 seconds. Martinez also scored in two other individual events, the most for any Judge today. He was 17^th in the 50-yard butterfly (25.11 seconds) and 20^th in the 400 individual medley (4:31.37). Pasicaran added a 12^th-place finish in the 100-yard backstroke with a time of 54.10 seconds.
 
The Judges' top individual finish of the meet came from senior Chloe Gonzalez (Miami Beach, Fla./Miami Beach Senior) who placed sixth in the 50-yard butterfly. Her time of 25.99 seconds was the second-fastest in team history, just 0.59 seconds out of a school record. Gonzalez also had a 17^th-place finish in the 200-yard freestyle with a time of 1:57.86.
 
The Judges had two other notable swims on the women's side. Senior Anastasia Bekou (Limassol, Cyprus/Laniteio Lyceum) earned a top-10 finish in the 50 back with a time of 28.25 seconds. In the 50 fly, sophomore Sophia Pulaski (West Linn, Ore./West Linn) was 19^th, turning in the seventh-best time in program history in the prelims at 27.44 seconds. She was just off that time in the finals at 27.49 seconds.

The top relay performance came from the men's 200 free relay, which was eighth with a time of 1:26.34, thanks to the team of Xiao, sophomore Solomon Skelton-Harris (Golden Valley, Minn./Robbinsdale Armstrong), junior Benjamin Lee (Upton, Mass./Nipmuc Regional) and Mou.
 
The rest of the Judges' individual scoring performances are as follows
 
Benjamin Lee: 200 Free – 12^th – 1:43.51
Luke Abrahamson: 100 Back – 13^th – 54.53
Sam Bundy: 400 IM – 14^th – 4:18.97
Solomon Skelton-Harris: 50 Fly – 15^th – 24.61
Anastasia Bekou: 100 Back – 16^th – 1:00.82
Bryan Kim: 50 Fly – 21^st – 25.32
Rebecca Kaplan: 400 IM – 22^nd – 4:57.19; 100 BR – 29^th – 1:13.05
Audrey Teo: 400 IM – 26^th – 5:05.05; 100 BR – 27^th – 1:12.24
Hannah Waldron: 50 Back – 27^th – 32.52
Daniyal Nabi: 100 BR – 27^th – 1:03.79
Lauren Balfour: 50 Back – 29^th – 33.54