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Boston College Golden Eagles vs. UMass Minutemen/Minutewomen
- October 5, 2024
- University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Mass.
- Short Course Yards (25 yards), college dual meet
- Full Meet Results
- Team Scores
- Boston College W 156 – UMass W 142
- Boston College M 186 – UMass M 114
A year and two weeks after the Boston College swimming & diving program was suspended, with some fearing the Golden Eagles would never return to varsity competition, the team burst into the 2024-2025 season with a pair of victories over in-state foes UMass on Saturday afternoon. The meet marked the NCAA coaching debut of the program’s new head coach, 12-time Olympic medalist and five time Olympian Dara Torres.
While the women’s meet was a nailbiter, with Boston College needing a couple of late wins to pull out a 14-point victory, the men’s meet was comparatively-lopsided, with the BC men winning by 72 points.
While Boston College, unique among Power 4 programs without athletic scholarships for their swimming & diving program, regularly finishes at the bottom of the ACC, they still had a lot of upward momentum going into their suspended season. The team was improving year-over-year both in number of ACC Championship scorers and regular rewrites of the school record books. The faithful will now hope that the hiring of Torres, one of the few American swimmers whose stardom transcends the sport, will resume that upward momentum.
For UMass, the results are flipped from what might be expected – the UMass men were 2nd at last year’s Atlantic 10 Championship meet out of 8 teams, while the women were 7th out of 11 squads – and lost a lot of quality swimmers to graduation.
Women’s Recap
Highlights:
- A young Boston College sprint group leads a sweep of the freestyle events for the Golden Eagles.
- Amanda Calderon had a breakthrough win in the 100 fly after a very fast relay split.
The UMass 200 medley relay was their strength last season, but those were veteran relays. Three of the four legs of their squad that placed 3rd at ACCs have graduated, but none-the-less the Minutewomen roared to a tone-setting two-plus second margin of victory, touching in 1:46.14. That’s thanks in part to the lone returning leg Lindsay Burbage, who split 28.94 on the breaststroke leg to open her sophomore season. Coupled with 5th year Ashley Calderon on the fly leg (25.14 – 1.4 second margin on BC), UMass opened up a three second lead after three legs before giving some back on the freestyle leg to BC freshman Lizzie Olpihant (24.04).
The margin might not tell the full story, though – BC’s best back-half was actually on their second relay, which finished 4th. That includes another freshman, Lauren Lee, who anchored in 23.96 as the Golden Eagles rebuild with a young group of swimmers who resemble their coach Torres, a sprinter.
It was that young sprint group that really took control for the BC women in the middle of the meet. Lee and Oliphant went 1-2 in the 50 free in 23.84 and 24.00, both times faster than the team’s best in their opener in the 2022-2023 season; while Oliphant (52.59) and sophomore Madison Connor (53.35) went 1-2 in the 100 free a few events later.
Lee added a win in the 200 free in 1:54.52. With senior Megan Kramer sweeping the 500 free (5:10.87) and 1000 free (10:35.92), plus a meet-concluding win in the 200 free relay (1:37.47 – Oliphant anchored in 23.75), the Eagles swept the day’s freestyle races.
The UMass women, meanwhile, made their hay and kept the meet close via their success in stroke events and diving.
That included the aforementioned Calderone leading a 1-2 finish in the 100 fly, touching in 56.45 – more than two seconds ahead of Boston College’s top finisher. That’s faster than she was in a dual meet all of last season by half-a-second as she looks to move into the scoring finals at the Atlantic 10 Championships following a 17th-place finish last year.
Her freshman teammate Hannah Schoenauer won the 200 fly in 2:06.78 and sophomore Lindsay Burbage won the 100 breast in 1:04.01.
UMass dominated women’s diving, scoring maximum points against just 1 diver for Boston College. In total, UMass had a 32-4 diving advantage, including a 1-meter win from freshman Danielle Guerin, who could provide the team a boost in an event where they didn’t score at A-10s last year.
Men’s Recap
Highlights:
- Freshman PJ Nolan kicked off his Boston College career with a win in the 200 free in 1:41.67.
- UMass’ Sammy Quigg swept the sprint free events in 20.34/45.24, respectively.
The UMass men started out the session with a win in the 200 medley relay thanks in large part to a 21.99 butterfly split from senior Grant Beebe, but from there-out it was all Golden Eagles. BC won 10 out of 14 swimming events on the day.
That included more positive results for the freestyle crew, including an early win from freshman PJ Nolan in the 200 free.
Nolan, the team’s top recruit this offseason, dominated the race, touching in a winning time of 1:41.67. That was almost three seconds clear of UMass sophomore Cole Brooks, who was 2nd in 1:44.50.
For Nolan, that was the best time he has been outside of a big championship meet, showing off big progress in his new training home.
Junior Ben Huffman put in a similar level of dominance in the 500 free (4:43.19) and 1000 free (9:48.45), winning the former by six-and-a-half seconds.
It was not a freestyle sweep for the BC men: UMass junior Sammy Quigg swept the sprints with a 20.34 in the 50 free and 45.24 in the 100 free, in both cases holding off a pack of Golden Eagles behind him. Quigg finished 7th and 4th in the 50 and 100 free, respectively, at last year’s A-10 Championships.
The last time BC was in the ACC Championships, Jack Doyle was the team’s top scorer, thanks to a 13th place finish in the 400 IM. Even after a year without collegiate competition (he raced in a few club meets in long course), Doyle remained one of the team’s top performers, sweeping the breaststroke events in times of 57.28 and 2:07.79, respectively.
He also touched comfortably first in the 200 IM in 1:51.4, but was disqualified.
Boston College’s men finished the day with a win in the 200 free relay in the most exciting swim of the week. There, Luke Condon held off Quigg for a win in 1:24.33, giving them .18 seconds of margin over UMass.
UMass again swept the diving events, though Boston College was more competitive on the men’s side. UMass junior Andrew Bell won both springboard competitions.