Men's Swimming & Diving: Princeton grabs close victory over Harvard

Luckily, Columbia’s squad of Hyun Lee, John Wright, Patrick Dougherty and Adam Powell dominated the race from beginning to end and helped the Tigers to their third Ivy League Championships title in three years. Princeton finished with 1,400.0 points, while Harvard finished with 1,394.5: a 5.5-point win.

Going into this weekend, the Tigers were ready to take on a challenge. After losing both the Harvard-Princeton-Yale meet (to Harvard) and their dual-meet against Navy, the men were seeking to defend their Ivy League title. Especially given the sickness of freshman teammate Daniel Hasler, the Tigers were more motivated than ever to dominate in the pool.

And dominate they did. Throughout the weekend, despite races that fell short of personal bests, the Tigers fought for every race until they touched the wall. The squad of senior Geoff Faux and juniors Matt LaMonaca, Michael Monovoukas and Colin Cordes started off Thursday’s session with a win in the 200-yard freestyle relay. Freshman Paul Nolle continued the momentum with a third in the 500-yard freestyle.

Less than an hour after the relay, Faux was in the pool again, earning a bronze in the 50-yard freestyle with a time of 20.19 seconds. The squad of sophomore Kaspar Raigla, junior Jonathan Christensen, Monovoukas and Faux finished the night off with another win in the 400-yard medley relay.

The Tigers continued to build on their Thursday night performance. Nolle raced Harvard’s freshman Wes Stearns for the majority of the 1,650-yard freestyle but was beaten by the Crimson in the last few laps of the race, to finish third overall. However, on Saturday night, Nolle raced home on the last lap with 24.71 seconds in the 1,000-yard freestyle to beat his rival, Stearns, and finish second overall.

Another rivalry, between Christensen and Penn’s junior Brendan McHugh, which has been ongoing since the pair’s freshman year, unfolded at every session. Christensen, who won the 200-yard individual medley on the first day with a time of 1 minute, 45.91 seconds was beaten by McHugh in the 100-yard breaststroke the next day. However, Christensen came back the final day and out-touched McHugh in the 200-yard breaststroke. To top it all off, the pair competed in an exciting time trial at the end of the meet, with McHugh barely beating Christensen in the 100-yard breaststroke. The two look forward to results from other parts of the country to see whether or not they have qualified for NCAAs, at the end of March.

Many other performances also contributed to the win. Raigla, who was the silver medalist last year in the 100-yard backstroke, perfected his starts and under-waters to win the race in a new school record of 48.11 seconds. He was second in the 200-yard backstroke to junior Colin Cordes, who looked strong from beginning to end.

Cordes and sophomore Will Lawley also competed in the 200-yard freestyle. They were head to head for the entire race, along with Columbia’s Hyun Lee, and finished second and third respectively. Other notable performances included Monovouka’s 100-yard butterfly and 100-yard freestyle, in both of which he finished third.

Sophomore diver Stevie Vines also demonstrated outstanding athleticism this weekend. Vines landed his fifth dive to win three-meter springboard, beating his rival and the defending three-meter champion, Harvard’s Michael Stanton; he was also second on one-meter springboard. Vines was named the High Point Diver of the Meet.