WORCESTER, Mass. – On the second day of action at the WPI Gompei Invitational, the Brandeis University swimming and diving team saw 13 individual top-10 performances, including one school record by senior Eric Xiao (College Station, Texas / A&M Consolidated). The Judges sat in fifth place out of nine teams in the standings with 2950 points. They were second among Division III schools, behind leaders and hosts WPI and just over 100 points ahead of Springfield.
 
XIAO'S SCHOOL RECORD

• The top performance of the weekend so far belonged to Xiao, who set a school record with his runner-up performance in the 50-yard butterfly.
• His time of 22.89 seconds erased a mark set in 2019 by Tamir Zitelny '19, lowering the record by five-hundredths of a second.
• Xiao was just 0.06 seconds out of the Judges' first victory of the meet.

MEN'S 'A' FINALISTS

• For the second day in a row, senior Benjamin Lee (Upton, Mass. / Nipmuc Regional) had a second-place finish. In the 200-yard freestyle, he turned in a time of 1:42.28.
• Like Xiao, it was a close race in the final, with a WPI swimmer winning by 0.07.
• The Judges excelled in the backstroke events, putting four swimmers in the 'A' finals in the 50 and two in the 100 finals.
• Junior Luke Abrahamson (Lincoln, R.I. / Lincoln) led the way in the backstroke, finishing fourth in the 50 (25.33 seconds) and seventh in the 100 (53.36 seconds). Junior Riley Pasicaran (Kennewick, Wash. / Hanford) was seventh in the 50 (26.13 seconds) and 10^th in the 100 (54.36 seconds).
• Senior AJ Martinez (North Miami Beach, Fla. / NSU University School) was fifth in the 50 back (25.61 seconds), while sophomore Jason Yan (Saugus, Mass. / Mystic Valley Regional Charter School) was ninth (26.91 seconds).
• The Judges had three other top-10 finishes by the men. Sophomore Peter Mou (Chestnut Hill, Mass. / Brimmer and May School) was fourth in the 50 butterfly with a time of 23.57 seconds, lowering his career-best by 0.12 seconds. Senior Solomon Skelton-Harris (Golden Valley, Minn. / Robbinsdale Armstrong) was seventh in the event with a time of 24.46 seconds.
• Senior Sam Bundy (Charlotte, N.C./Ardrey Kell) rounded out the top-10 perfomers for the men with a fifth-place finish in the 400-yard individual medley with a time of 4:13.69.

TOP WOMEN'S PERFORMANCES

• The Brandeis women had their first two top-10 finishes of the weekend today.
• First-year Michelle Weissler (Greenwich, Conn. / Greenwich) came in third in the 100-yard breaststroke with a time of 1:07.09. It was the third-fastest time in program history, just the fourth to break 1:08 and just shy of becoming the third to go under 1:07.
• Classmate Ivana Marinkovic (Malden, Mass. / Malden) came in fourth in the 1-meter diving event with a score of 268.00.
• Three women added top-20 placements. Sophomore Lauren Balfour (Madison, Miss. / Pine Crest) was 20^th in the 50-yard backstroke with a time of 30.33 seconds.
• Senior Sophia Denaro (Rockville, Md. / Holton-Arms) and senior Rebecca Kaplan (Fairfax, VA / Robinson Secondary School) each came in 15^th in a race. Kaplan swam a time of 1:13.63 in the 400 IM, while swam 1:10.17 in the 100-yard breaststroke.  

 
RELAY PERFORMANCES

• Xiao, first-year Avi Borgen (Teaneck, N.J./The Frisch School), Lee and Mou were fourth overall in the 200 free relay (1:25.57).
• Abrahamson, Xiao, first-year Santiago Salazar (Houston, Texas/James E. Taylor) and Mou were seventh in the 400 medley relay (3:33.26).

UP NEXT

• The Judges finish up at the Gompei Invitational tomorrow at 9 a.m.