Spurred on by the brilliant early-season swimming of freshman David Lundberg, Harvard sank the Naval Academy Mid-shipmen, 72-41, at Blodgett Pool Saturday to run its dual meet record to 2-0.
Lundberg, who must be rated an even bet to earn a position on the United States Olympic team next summer, shattered the school 200-yd. breaststroke record in only his second collegiate attempt at that distance.
The lanky, blond, Provo, Utah, native charged home uncontested in the last 75 yards to finish at 2:07.45, almost a full second under the old University mark. His time may well be the best in the country so far this season.
"I was trying to go out fairly fast but easy, wanting to feel good the first half and then bring it back hard," Lundberg said afterwards. "We've been working on the second 100, trying to get me swimming closer to even splits."
He took the first 100 out in 1:01.5 (only slightly faster than last week at Columbia when he finished in 2:09.08), then roared back under the encouragement of his teammates at the small but boisterous crowd to outdistance the rest of the field by more than four seconds.
Earlier, Lundberg showed that he is part of the Crimson's answer for the loss of Malcolm Cooper and Julian Mack in the freestyle sprints as the versatile Yardling destroyed his competition in the 100-yd. freestyle, winning in 47.47.
Like the Columbia meet, the outcome of Saturday's contest was decided early on. Harvard won the medley relay and swept the 1650 and 200 freestyles to make the score 23-2. The rest of the meet amounted to the two coaches attempting to match their personnel, creating close races to stimulate fast times.
Chris Hancock was one beneficiary of this strategy. He outdueled Navy's Joe Heil for third in the 1650 free (16:51 to 16:59), and later pulled away from the Mid-shipman in the last 100 yards of the 500-yd. free to chalk up his career first dual meet victory. Heil had beaten Hancock by tenths of seconds in both events at last years Easterns.
Medleyist Andy Lockman survived a grueling triple during the middle of the meet, scoring seven points in the process. Lockman won the 200-yd. butterfly, rested during the 100-yd. free, then placed third back-to-back in the 200-yd. breaststroke and the 500-yd. freestyle.
Madman Mike Coglin's consecutive triple in the 200 free (2nd), 50 free (1st) and 200 individual medley (5th) was almost as brutal.
As always, diving was a Crimson strongpoint. Senior ace Steve Schramm assured himself of a place in the March NCAA qualifying meet by winning the one-meter event with 300 points, his second consecutive total over the 290-point entry standard.
Freshman Jeff Mule recovered from a shaky debut last week to place second behind Schramm from both one and three meters.
CRIMSON SPLASHES: Sentiments varied over the controversial new policy of running swimming and diving events concurrently. Swimming buffs like it "cause you don't have to sit through the diving," while afficionados feel that "divers don't get the attention they deserve." It is one thing to ask the divers to perform during a long race (like the 1650) while the crowd is relatively quiet, but quite another to expect them to be able to concentrate through the turmoil of crowd noise at finishes and starts and during public address announcements of events. The divers deserve better treatment than that.
HARVARD 72 NAVY 41
at Blodgett Pool
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