Buffalo Bulls Men's Swimming and Diving Miami recap: Bulls coast against MAC foe

After little challenge yesterday against Niagara, Men's Swimming and Diving took a big step up this afternoon in a key MAC dual against Miami. While in theory nothing matters other than qualifying for the conference championship meet and winning races there, duals against conference foes give us a chance to see how the Bulls stack up. Today, UB wiped the floor with their MAC opposition, 230.5-76.5, even just the day after a dual against Niagara.

UB won every event but the three-meter dive and had the second place finisher in all but five events. Miami finished just a hair's breadth behind the Bulls in last year's MAC Championships.

Relays

This is probably the first meet all year in which there's much meaning in the relay combinations, and for the most part there was nothing too surprising. In the opening medley relay, Itai De La Vega and Mason Miller swam breast and fly over strong intrasquad competition from Scott Huang and Andrew Cole-Goins, but I was somewhat more surprised to see Aaron Durrence swim the freestyle anchor, while Antonio Lanzi didn't even swim on the second group. Hudson Carroll over Jon Ekas in the backstroke may flipflop a bit this season.

The 400 free relay was about what you'd expect: Lanzi-Leigh-Durrence-Miller, and won by over 2.5 seconds. That's a group that could win a lot of races this year.

Freestyle

Reid Zyniecki was the star in the distance events, where UB has a good amount of evenly-matched depth. He won the 1000 and came in second to Charles Barry in the 500. UB swept 1-2-3 in both events.

In the shorter races, you only need remember the four names above. Miller took the 50, Durrence the 100, and Lanzi the 200, and Durrence, Lanzi, and Leigh further combined for two second-place and three third-place finishes in the three events.

Backstroke

Carroll was a double winner here, sharing the 200 podium with Miami's Jake Precious. Jon Ekas came in second in the 100 and Charles Barry third in the 200.

Breaststroke

SWIM DLV strikes again, as De La Vega, Garrett Clarke, and Luke Otto went 1-2-3 in the 100, and Clarke, Otto, and DLV 1-3-5 in the 200.

Butterfly

Andrew Cole-Goins and Zach Towers finished top four in both races, and Billy Patrum and Mason Miller split the 200 and 100 wins, respectively.

Individual Medleys

Only the 200 today, and Whither Scott Huang? Patrum, Clarke, and Barry went 1-2-3.

Diving

I'll be updating the spaces above once I check times, but here's where the fireworks were as Nick Rodriguez set a new school record with a 359.85 score in the one-meter dive. That was good enough for the win by a wide margin, but though UB swept 1-2-3 in this event, they managed only 3-4-5 in the three meter.

The Men are now off for two weeks before a quad-meet against Ohio State, Michigan, and Michigan State on the 30th, but the Women have a home dual against Ohio next Saturday themselves.