December 2, 1983--The Harvard men's swimming team's 4 1/2-year, 32-meet winning streak crashes to a halt as Navy snatches a 61-52 victory at Annapolis, Md. It is Coach Joe Bernal's second loss in over six years at the helm of the Crimson. The next day, his team will lose again, this time to Columbia.

November 30, 1984--Harvard strikes back.

With all the artillery of a naval warship and a all the determination of a once scorned leader, the Harvard men's swimming team last night avenged one of its most disappointing losses of all time.

One year to the day after the Navy men's swimming team ended Harvard's string of 32 consecutive victories the then-longest active winning streak in collegiate swimming history--the Crimson yesterday pummelled the visiting Midshipmen, 89-24, in one of the most lopsided Crimson wins in recent history.

As a result of its triumph before more than 50 fans at Blodgett Pool, the seven-time defending Eastern Seaboard Champion Harvard squad (now 2-0) reaffirmed its position as the Beast of the East and served notice to all that it's bigger and better than ever.

"I didn't expect to beat them. "Navy Coach Lee Lawrence said after his squad's first loss of the year. "With the freshmen they have in this year and the returning lettermen, no one on the Eastern Seaboard can get within 20 points of them if he [Bernal] wants it that way."

And last night at Blodgett, Bernal and the Crimson wanted it that way. The Midshipmen couldn't get within 60.

Paced by impressive victories from junior Peter Egan in the 200-yd, butterfly, freshman John Pearson in the 500-yd. freestyle, sophomore Daniel Simkowitz in the 200-yd. backstroke, freshman David Berkoff in the 200-yd. IM, and a host of others, the Crimson squad jumped out to early leads of 7-0, 15-1 and 46-15 and never looked back.

"We were shooting for 100 points, but I realized midmeet that we could have scored a million points and that wouldn't make up for last year," Egan said.

Caught flat-footed a year ago by a shaved and tapered Naval squad, the Harvard team had a lot to prove last night.

"We've envisioned this ever since last year," said Crimson Co-Captain Brian Grottkau.

"But we learned a lot from our loss last year," Grottkau added "We [this year's senior class] had never lost a meet before. We realized we had to renew our committment and push harder; everybody had to pitch in.

"This year we're reestablishing ourselves as the dominant force on the Eastern Seaboard."

Everyone certainly pitched in last night as the Crimson recorded its first major victory of the year.

Perhaps the biggest difference between this year and a year ago was the performance of the Crimson freshmen, including Bill Bird, Jeff Peltier, Chris Gould, Berkoff and Pearson.