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Photo By: Tom O'Brien
Photo By: Tom O'Brien

Beck caps historic meet as Bulldogs finish 4th at MAACs

SMITHFIELD, R.I. – Junior Graham Beck (Danvers, Mass.) capped a historic championship meet with a gold medal in the 200 breast as the Bryant University men's swimming and diving team finished fourth at the MAAC Championships.

The Bulldogs finished with 355 points and posted their best finish since joining the conference. Rider won the meet with 735 points. Marist was second with 689 points and Canisius finished third with 529 points.

On Saturday, Beck solidified himself as one of the greatest swimmers in program history. The junior captain set his third school record of the meet and became the just the second swimmer in program history – Alex Kosenski – to win a gold medal at the MAAC Championships. Beck broke his own school record in the 200 breast with a time of 2:02.65, winning the event by over a second. The Bulldogs also claimed their second relay medal as the 400 free relay team of Boris Paraliticci (Saunderstown, R.I.), Nicholas Karadimas (New Milford, Conn.), Cameron Hessler (Southbury, Conn.) and Pierre Le Guyader (East Islip, N.Y.) finished third with a time of 3:05.31.

Bryant got strong performances from Hessler, Karadimas and sophomore Joshua Bjornberg (Wallingford, Conn.). Hessler wrapped up his career with a ninth-place finish in the 200 back (1:54.73), Karadimas finished fourth in the 100 free (46.01) and Bjornberg finished seventh in the 200 breast with a time of 2:05.96.

Several other Bulldogs also performed well on the final day. Robert Beauchemin (Holliston, Mass.) finished 13th in the 200 back (1:56.10), Le Guyader  finished seventh in the 100 free (46.62), Paraliticci finished 16th in the 100 free (47.51), Gary Enoksen (Islip, N.Y.) finished 13th in the 200 breast (2:11.63), Jonathan Brodeur (Old Saybrook, Conn.) finished 15th in the 200 breast (2:14.62) and Andrew Neggia (Ramsey, N.J.) finished 15th in the 200 fly (1:58.05).

After completing their second season in the MAAC, the Bulldogs will head into the offseason with their sights on an even better finish in 2015.