The Harvard men's swimming and diving team managed to defend its home waters by soundly defeating both of its opponents in the Harvard-Cornell-Dartmouth dual meet Saturday at Blodgett Pool.

"We did well this weekend because of all the hard work that we've been putting in," junior Dan Barnes said. "We're starting to wrap up our season and are looking forward to Easterns [in early March]."

By the end of Saturday's competition, Harvard had handed Cornell a 136-72 loss and had also defeated Dartmouth, 145-77. Saturday's dual meet was the Crimson's last competition before it attempts to win the Eastern Championships during the first weekend of March.

The Crimson's freshman class, which has performed brilliantly throughout the season, again turned in stellar individual showings during Saturday's dual meet.

"It's cool having such a close freshman class," freshman Rick Dewey said. "We're one of the closest classes on the team."

Harvard freshman Andrew McConnell won the 1650-meter freestyle with a time of 15:42.54, and sophomore Ben Hanley finished second behind McConnell after clocking in at 15:53.49.

"[McConnell] is a big part of what I've been able to do this season," Hanley said. "The freshman class has just been amazing this year because they've already added a lot to our program."

Harvard dominated the 200 freestyle by sweeping the top three spots. Freshman Cory Walker, classmate Dan Chevchik and senior Brian Swinteck finished 1-2-3 in the race, with Walker recording an impressive time of 1:41.41.