On Oct. 13, the Case Western Reserve University men’s and women’s swimming and diving teams opened their 2024-2025 season, dominating the Early Season Invite hosted by Oberlin College. Both teams placed first out of four teams, with 954.5 and 1030 points scored by the men’s and women’s teams, respectively.

In total, the Spartans placed first in 26 out of the 38 events, with the men’s team winning 10 and the women’s team winning 16.

On the women’s team, fourth-year swimmer Gabriella Chambers contributed to seven of the Spartans’ wins, with three individual first-place finishes in the 50-yard freestyle (24.56), 100-yard freestyle (53.26) and 200-yard freestyle (1:57.62), as well as a total of four first-place relays with first-year Marina Oria and fourth-years Kate Menzer and Angeli Paull in the 200-yard freestyle relay (1:38.80), fourth-year Simone Vale, Paull and Menzer in the 400-yard freestyle relay (3:38.76), fourth-year Erica Rice, Menzer and first-year Sayjel Tan in the 200-yard medley relay (1:50.78) and Rice, Menzer and third-year Julia Cho in the 400-yard medley relay (4:05.37).

Fourth-year diver Abigail Wilkov swept the women’s diving events with a score of 266.60 points in the 1-meter dive and 245.35 points in the 3-meter dive.

On the men’s team, fourth-year swimmer Peter Meng contributed four wins, with three individual victories in the 500-yard freestyle (4:41.24) , 400-yard individual medley (3:58.14) and 200-yard backstroke (1:56.80). He was also on the 400-yard freestyle relay team with fourth-year Ben Zuo and third-years William Froass and Mason Bencurik, taking the first-place finish in 3:09.39.

For their performances at the Oberlin Invite, Chambers, Wilkov and Meng were named UAA Athletes of the Week.

“I was really excited to see that. That’s something that I’ve always wanted to achieve since I was a freshman. I’ve always [tried] every year to just start off strong so that maybe one day I’ll get noticed through the conference. So to start off the season and have that after the first meet, I was very happy about it,” Chambers said.

On Oct. 19, the teams split up with the fourth-years and graduate students traveling to Gambier, Ohio to compete in the Kenyon Relays and the underclassmen traveling to Ashland, Ohio for the teams’ first dual meet of the season against Ashland University.

Both teams swept Ashland and placed second in the Kenyon Relays, with 79 points for the men’s team and 85 for the women’s team.

The Spartans won a total of 24 events in Ashland. On the men’s team, Froass led the squad in contributed wins with four total events. Individually, he won both the 100-yard and 200-yard backstroke with times of 52.34 and 1:57.08, respectively. He also claimed the 200-yard medley relay with teammates Bencurik, third-year Julian Kim and first-year Edward Steward (1:34.95), as well as the 200-yard freestyle relay with Bencurik and third-years Ben Borvendeg and Zach Halsey (1:26.52). Both Bencurik and Steward contributed an additional two individual wins each, with Bencurik touching the wall first in the 100-yard and 200-yard freestyle and Steward in the 100-yard and 200-yard butterfly.

In the distance events, third-year John Drumm and first-year Sam Schultz won the 500-yard and 1000-yard freestyle with times of 4:51.78 and 10:16.96, respectively.

On the women’s team third-year Claire Kozma led the Spartans with four wins, including two relays. She contributed to the Spartans’ 24 wins, with individual first-place finishes in the 50-yard freestyle (24.61) and 100-yard butterfly (58.47). With her teammates Cho, Tan and third-year Eliza Dixon, the team placed first in the 200-yard medley relay with a time of 1:50.34. Kozma was also part of the winning 200-yard freestyle relay team with Dixon, Cho and Oria, finishing in 1:40.85.

Second-year Ava Ellis added a pair of wins for CWRU, touching the wall first in the 200-yard breaststroke and 200-yard individual medley with times of 2:34.15 and 2:17.65.

At Kenyon College, fourth-year diver Alex Waltman claimed the 3-meter dive with a total of 275.40 points and fourth-year diver Jocelyn Schechter also claimed the 3-meter dive with 272.85 points, in addition to her second-place finish in the 1-meter dive with 255.45 points.

In the swimming relays, the women’s teams had one second-place finish in the 3×500-yard freestyle relay and a trio of third-place finishes in the 200-yard butterfly relay, the 200-yard freestyle relay and the 400-yard individual relay. The men’s team also had a trio of third-place finishes in the 200-yard breaststroke relay, the 400-yard individual relay and the 3×500-yard freestyle relay. The Spartans also recorded one second-place finish in the 200-yard mixed relay from the team of Vale, Zuo, Chambers and fourth-year Kevin Hu.

As of Oct. 23, ​​the men’s team ranks 16th and the women’s team ranks 17th nationally among Division III teams.

“We’ve been creeping up that rank. I think last season we finished 13th at NCAA, and that’s something I didn’t think would happen and to be able to be a part of that is really special. Everyone’s been contributing little by little, and we’ve been moving up as a team. So overall, I think we’re off to a pretty good start. And we were just getting started, so there’s a lot to still come and hopefully we’ll finish off really well,” Chambers commented.

This coming weekend, the Spartan teams will host Ohio Wesleyan in Veale Natatorium for their second dual meet on Oct. 26 at 1 p.m.