The University of Rochester men's swimming & diving team fell to NCAA Division I Canisius University, 168-125, on Saturday in their first meet of the 2025-26 season inside the Speegle-Wilbraham Center.
 
Rochester opened the year with seven first-place results and 18 top-three finishes, led by a trio of double-winners in Ben Friedberg, Brendan Habert and Max McClung.
 
Friedberg scored an individual win in the 50 freestyle, touching the wall in 21.25 seconds as URochester's top finisher, and then swam the anchor leg of Rochester's 200 freestyle relay, combining with Demo Hong, Sebastian Gans and Connor Kann to wrap up the meet with an event win in the relay with a time of 1:26.97.
 
Nate Attwell, Tommy Zeliph, Venden Berge and Jayden Proctor added another top-three result for the 'Jackets in the 200 freestyle relay, placing third with a time of 1:31.50.
 
Habert took home event wins in both diving events, and was joined on the podium by Max Wozinski in both the one and three-meter dives. Habert topped the podium in the three-meter dive with a 220.50-point score, while Wozinski took second with 208.85 points.
 
In the one-meter, Habert scored 208.90 points to finish first, while Wozinski again took second with 196.95 points.
 
McClung came in first in both the 100 backstroke (51.81) and 100 butterfly (51.19), and also paced the Yellowjackets in the 200 backstroke and 200 medley relay. McClung took second in the 200 backstroke with a time of 1:59.39, and swam the opening leg of the 200 medley relay, leading Max Gjevre, Hong and Friedberg to a second-place result and 1:36.99 time.
 
Gans also finished in the top three of the 100 backstroke with a time of 53.91, while Gjevre was URochester's top finisher in three other events, the 100 breaststroke (5th, 1:01.35), the 200 breaststroke (4th, 2:20.29) and the 200 IM (3rd, 2:05.27).
 
The Yellowjackets' last event win on the day came in the 1,000 freestyle, where Tyler Yeung and Matthew Spence finished 1-2. Yeung took first with his 10:09.45 time, while Spence touched the wall in 10:14.51, good for second place.
 
In the 200 butterfly, another pair of newcomers, Patrick Li and Ryan Bowering, earned two top-three results, with Li finishing second with a time of 2:03.02, while Bowering clocked in at 2:04.32, good for third.
 
Attwell added URochester's last top-three result in the 500 freestyle, coming in third with a time of 4:57.25, and also paced the 'Jackets earlier in the day in the 200 freestyle, with a time of 1:47.84, good for fourth.
 
In the 100 freestyle, Kann was Rochester's top finisher, touching the wall in 48.39 seconds, good for fourth.
 
The Yellowjackets will be back in the pool next Saturday, Oct. 25, when they head to Cortland, NY, for a dual meet against SUNY Cortland beginning at 1:00 p.m.