In Friday morning's qualifying round, the teamplaced all but one of its swimmers in the topeight of the various events.
"The key was that second morning," Heilmansaid.
Things kept rolling for the Crimson on Fridayevening, when John Blaney won the 400-yardindividual medley for the second straight year atthe Easterns.
Harvard followed this victory with a stunningwin in the 800-yard freestyle relay, whenLivingston--who had been shadowing his Princetonopponent throughout the last leg of therace--overtook him in the last 100 yards to winthe heat.
Harvard hadn't won the 800-yard relay in thepast eight years. Furthermore, Princeton hadpulled out all the stops to win the race,anchoring its relay team with its top 200-yardfreestyle.
"We didn't expect [the win]," Livingston said."I was pretty psyched. It was great for the team."
"That broke Princeton's back and got us firedup," Heilman said
The list of wins just kept growing for theCrimson. Ou won both the 100-and 200-yardbreaststroke, both times narrowly beating freshmanteammate Dave Schwartz.
Junior Tim Carver also set a pool record duringhis win in the 200-yard backstroke with a time of1:46.50. Livingston also swam an incredible500-yard freestyle race, winning it with a time of4:26.10
"In the last 100 yards, he was completelypossessed," Ou said. "He completely pulled awayfrom the competition."
Harvard saved perhaps its best race for last,when on Saturday afternoon the team of Carver,Esway, freshman Karl Scheer and Heilman won the400-yard freestyle relay, setting both a pool anda meet record in the process with a time of2:58.66.
"We had already won the meet at that point, butwe still wanted to win the last race," Esway said.
Princeton, whose strength is its relays, washoping to leave with a victory at least, but itwasn't to be.
"We touched them out, and twisted the knife intheir back," Esway said.
When the dust cleared, Harvard had won a totalof 11 races out of the 19 heats of the tournament,on win short of tying the record for events won atEasterns.
Once again, the closeness of the team helpedthe Crimson pull out its dominating victory.
"Everybody supported everybody else reallywell," Ou said. "We came together really well."
Next Monday, Harvard will find out which of itsmembers have qualified for the NCAA's. After thisweekend's performance, one can look forward tomany Crimson swimmers moving on to the toptournament in the country.