Last weekend, men’s swimming and diving ended its season with a fourth-place finish in the Ivy League Championships — the team’s first top-four finish since 2022. Bruno toppled 11 program records throughout the meet, dominating in the 1-meter dive, 100-meter breaststroke and 400-meter individual medley.
During the four-day competition, the Bears scored 927.5 points — just 15 more than fifth-place Cornell’s 912.5.
But despite finishing in fourth place, Bruno started the meet looking up from fifth. On Wednesday, the first day of the competition, the Bears mustered two fifth-place finishes in the 200-meter medley and 800-meter freestyle relays — a performance that needed to improve if they hoped to pass Cornell.
On Thursday, Christian Duetoft ’28 notched Bruno’s first individual points with a fifth-place finish in the 500-meter freestyle. His teammate Matt Williamson ’27 swam a faster time of 4:18.75 in the consolation final for the same event, setting a new program record.
In the 200-meter IM, Marton Nagy ’28 bested another program record, finishing in 1:42.69. His efforts earned him a second-place finish — and 28 points for Bruno.
“Marton’s first Ivy Championship meet exceeded what were already very high expectations,” Head Coach Kevin Norman wrote. “Sometimes that first championship meet for a freshman can be a little intimidating, but Marton was completely unfazed and embraced the moment.”
In the other pool, Rowland Lawver ’26 became Brown’s first athlete to ever win the 1-meter dive at the Ivy Championships. His score of 370.30 was the ninth-highest in Ivy League history for the event.
On Friday night, the Bears truly came out of hibernation. Williamson opened the night swimming 8:56.13 in the 1000-meter freestyle, earning him his second program record of the meet.
But the night was dominated by Nagy — who won the 400-meter IM with a time of 3:24.64, another program record — and Jack Kelly ’25, who stunned the competition in the 100-meter breaststroke.
Swimming a 50.60, Kelly won the event for the second year in a row and broke the program, pool and Ivy League record. The time also qualified him for the NCAA Division I championships, set to take place at the end of this month.
“Seeing all the hard work from the full season pay off with time drops at Ivies made all those hours in the pool and the gym worth it,” Kelly wrote to The Herald. “It’s such a rewarding feeling.”
Bruno ended the third day by breaking yet another program record — this time in the 400-meter medley relay, swam by Nagy, Kelly, Tucker Peterson ’26 and Marcus Lee ’25.
On Saturday — the fourth and final day of the meet — Williamson managed a sixth-place finish in the 1650-meter freestyle, while Lee finished eighth in the 100-meter freestyle.
Nagy set yet another program record, swimming a ninth-place 1:42.69 in the 200 backstroke. And Kelly’s second-place finish in the 200-meter breaststroke qualified him for another NCAA championship event.
At the NCAA championships, Kelly hopes to “represent Brown on college swimming’s biggest stage the best way (he) can,” he wrote. “Whether that’s making a final or just giving it my all, I want to make sure I leave everything in the pool and make my team proud.”
After finishing this year’s Ivy Championships with three titles, a new Ivy record and a number of broken program records, Bruno can look toward their future with excitement.
“When the lights are brighter and the moment is big, like (at) Ivy Championships, it really magnifies your team’s strengths and weaknesses,” Norman wrote in a message to The Herald. He also coached the team to their fourth-place finish in 2022, earning him the Ivy League Coach of the Year award.
“I think our performance at Ivy Championships (this year) was a product of the leadership we have on our team and the confident mindset we approached the meet with,” he added. “We will obviously have big shoes to fill with our senior class graduating … but we have a lot of young talent on our roster and an exciting class coming in.”
Dennis Carey is a Sports editor who enjoys playing volleyball, listening to and collecting vinyl records and poorly playing the guitar in his spare time.
