The University at Buffalo hosted the Mid-American Conference Championships for the men's swimming and diving teams this year. The Bulls could not take advantage of swimming at home as they finished in fourth-place with 378 points.
The fourth-place finish was the highest that Buffalo has gotten since joining the MAC in 1998. The 378 points is the most the Bulls have obtained in the MAC Championships, shattering their previous record of 269, which was set in 2005.
"This was our best performance in the MAC Championships," said head coach Budd Termin. "We set a record for the most amount of points in school history and there were 24 lifetime bests from the guys."
Eastern Michigan came out as the victors for the 26th time in school history with 1,008.5 points. Miami (Ohio) was the runner-up with 801.5 points, followed by Ohio who had 584.5 points. Ball State rounded out the field with a final score of 349.5
Freshman Mike McDowell got Buffalo off to a quick start in the one-meter dive. McDowell tallied 320.20 points on six attempts to earn second-place in the event. In the preliminaries, McDowell received 295 points, which was the most out of all the divers.
The Bulls also got a great performance from sophomore Zach Ruske in the 200-yard individual medley. Ruske finished in fourth-place with a time of 1:53.87. Ruske swam a career-high in the preliminaries touching the wall in 1:53.82. Ruske also was given All-MAC second team honors.
The second day of the Championships started off with a bang. McDowell continued his success by setting a Buffalo record on the three-meter springboard with a score of 338.80 points in the preliminaries. McDowell ended up earning second team All-MAC.
Ruske and senior Luke Adams represented the Bulls in the 100-yard backstroke final. Ruske came in seventh-place in a time of 52.18. He swam a lifetime-best 51.96 to reach the finals in the preliminaries. Adams was right behind in eighth-place finishing with a time of 52.69.
Buffalo also got two winners from the consolation meets on Friday. Freshman Jordan Matthews posted a lifetime-best time of 59.18 in the 100-yard breaststroke. Freshman Andrew Tamchyna swam the 100-yard backstroke in 52.15, finishing in ninth-place.
The final day of the Championships was another day of personal-bests for some Buffalo swimmers. Ruske earned another career-best time in the 200-yard backstroke in the preliminaries with a time of 1:51.45. In the finals, he came in fourth-place finishing the race in 1:51.59. Tamchyna also competed in this race and finished in fifth-place with a time of 1:52.61.
Freshman Scott Woster represented the Bulls in the 200-yard butterfly. Woster placed sixth swimming the race in a career-best time of 1:53.67.
The MAC Championships concluded the season for the Bulls. Buffalo will return 17 swimmers from this year's squad next year. The only two graduating seniors are Adams and Aaron Moessinger.
"Luke Adams and Aaron Moessinger have shown great leadership this year and deserve a lot of credit," Termin said. "They both have had great careers and have shown lots of improvement over the years."
With the inexperience of his squad, Termin is happy with the team's performance this season, and is looking forward to the future.
"For being such a young team, I am not surprised from the team's performance this year," Termin said. "There has been constant improvement from the beginning of the season. They are a competitive group and did a great job this weekend in a tough environment. It was a loud atmosphere with lots of people yelling and screaming and the guys did a great job handling the different dynamics."
Photo: Courtesy of Laron Fomby
