Central Connecticut’s swimming and diving team fell to both Bryant and Wagner in a two-day meet, its first against Northeast Conference competition on the season.

The two Blue Devils who took home first place finishes on the event were junior Valentina Gomez and freshman Alex Lindgren. Both swimmers received NEC weekly awards thanks to their performance in the team’s meet against New Hampshire.

Gomez was awarded ‘Swimmer of the Week,’ while Lindgren took home, ‘Rookie of the Week.’

At this week’s event, Gomez won an event on each day, taking first in the 200-yard butterfly on Friday, besting the second place finisher by nearly four seconds. She came back on Saturday and won the 500-yard freestyle, this time beating second place to the wall by a whopping six-second margin.

Lindgren continued to show strong in breaststroke events, winning the 200-yard variety on Saturday. Lindgren also tallied a third-place finish in the 100-yard variety on Saturday. In addition, she came home fourth in the 400-yard individual medley on the same day. On Friday, she finished fifth in the 100-yard IM.

Though she did not win any events, senior Aidan Devers was another strong performer for the Blue Devils. She was the runner-up in the 400-yard IM, the same one Lindgren competed in. She finished just over a second ahead of her teammate, junior Gracie Regan, who took her for the event.

Devers also finished third in a trio of events at the meet, including the 200-yard freestyle on Friday, trailing the winner from Bryant by two seconds. She finished just a tenth of a second ahead of freshman Katie Czulewicz. Regan finished sixth in the event.

On the same day, Devers took third in the 200-yard IM, once again competing with Lindgren.

Things were the same for Devers on Saturday, touching the wall third in the 500-yard freestyle, the same event Gomez won.

One theme from the season that continued over the weekend was the strong presence of freshmen, in addition to the aforementioned Lindgren and Czulewicz.

Jeannette King finished fourth in a pair of events: the 100-yard backstroke on Friday as well as the 100-yard freestyle on Saturday. Czulewicz finished fifth in the same event on Saturday.

Fellow rookies Mariana Espino, Destiny Johnson and Hallie Perrin all competed for the Blue Devils at some point during the event.

The Blue Devils will now have nearly an entire month off of competing before they take part in the USA Winter Nationals, taking place over four days from Nov. 28 through Dec. 1. They will return to Jack Suydam Natatorium soon after on Dec. 14 when they will host the three-day Blue Devil Aquatics Invitational.

They do not compete against NEC competition until a February home meet against LIU Brooklyn.