The men’s swim team took home a non-conference victory against Baruch College by a score of 147-91 in a meet at home on Saturday. This win was the first of the season for the Roadrunners, evening their record to 1-1 in the young season.
The day kicked off on a very successful note for Ramapo in the 200-meter relay, where the Roadrunners collected both the first and second place spots in the race. Coming first overall was the ‘B’ team. This team consisted of Caleb Baron, Tyler Moore, Meghan Cortez and Giovanni Alvarez. The team clocked in with a time of just 1:42.22 highlighted by Cortez finishing in just 23.54 seconds.
Right behind the ‘B’ team was the ‘A’ team made up of Brendan McDevitt, Samuel De Leon, Benjamin Gomez and Joe Swede. This group of swimmers finished with a time of 1:50.28, just one second ahead of Baruch’s team. The shortest time in this group was Gomez, who finished his lap in 23.78 seconds.
Moving onto individual events for the men’s team, Jeff Horn posted the top time in the 1000-yard freestyle with 11:08.37. 17-year-old AJ Guevara finished second for Ramapo and third overall with a time of 12:26.95.
In the 200-yard freestyle, Ramapo swimmers occupied all of the top-three positions. Emile Eeckhout claimed first place with his 1:52.24 time. Michael Sooy finished just one second behind Eeckhout, ending in second place. Finally, Swede rounded out the top three for Ramapo with a time of 2:03.86, finishing off a clean sweep of this event for the Roadrunners.
While no one from Ramapo won the 100-yard backstroke, they were able to take second and third place. McDevitt came in second with a time of 57.24 and Baron came in third, clocking in with a time of 1:02.18. De Leon collected a first-place finish in the 100-yard breaststroke with his time of 1:03.43. Directly behind him was his teammate Moore, finishing his race in 1:05.59. Horn finished third for Ramapo and fourth overall with his time of 1:14.24.
Ramapo swept another top-three of an event, this time the 200-yard butterfly. G. Alvarez finished first with his 2:15.26 time. Coming in three seconds behind him was Sooy and finally Alessandro Alvarez finished third with a time of 2:21.18.
The Roadrunners dominated in the 50-yard freestyle as well, with Gomez, Ryan Gallacher and Guevara finishing in first, second and third, respectively, all with times under 26 seconds. In the 100-yard freestyle, Ramapo had the top two finishers end up within half of a second of each other and both finished in under one minute. First was Swede and directly following him was A. Alvarez.
De Leon also won the 200-yard breaststroke with his time of 2:26.19. In the 500-yard freestyle, Eeckhout finished first with an impressive time of 5:08.29, 17 seconds ahead of the second-place finisher Moore. This was the final event a Roadrunner won in the meet, but the overall impressive day helped Ramapo earn the victory.
Despite being ranked fourth in the New Jersey Athletic Conference (NJAC) prior to the beginning of the season, the team showed a lot of potential against Baruch. Ramapo’s next meet will be on Saturday, Oct. 29 against The College of New Jersey as the team looks to earn its first NJAC victory of the season.
bschmid@ramapo.edu
Photo courtesy of Ramapo Athletics.
