“It was very gratifying, especially after losing the meet last year,” Gentilucci said. “Also, we knew that this was the toughest Princeton squad we had ever faced.”

The Crimson attack took shape in much the same way it had in each of the two previous seasons—Shevchik and junior John Cole paved the way by dominating their events with a patchwork of victories and top finishes by several of Harvard’s other swimmers supplementing the point total and sealing the victory.

In the final meet, Shevchik did what has become second nature to him—he won all his events, sharing the high-scorer title with Cole.

Over four years, Shevchik accumulated more total points than any other swimmer in the league, earning him the Ulen Award in recognition of his accomplishment.

As Shevchik did, Cole began his weekend with a record-setting effort, breaking away from the competition to win the 500-yard freestyle in 4:20.11—four seconds ahead of the pack.

On the second day, Cole approached his own 1000-yard freestyle meet record before ultimately falling three seconds short of breaking it. He still handily defeated the rest of the field by over five and a half seconds. In spite of pauses to pull his cap from his head before wiping his goggles clean, Cole also edged out the runner-up in the 1650-yard freestyle by nearly half a second.

Cole had shown flashes of that brilliance earlier in the season, when he took second in the event at the Texas Invitational. With a time of 15:02.82, Cole was bested only by USC’s Eric Vendt, an Olympic medalist, who dominated the event, winning in a time of 14:42.97.

Although he would perform better later in the season, the result would not be as sweet against the NCAA’s more difficult competition. Despite shaving eight seconds from his time, Cole took seventh at NCAAs, down five spots from his second-place finish the previous year.

Complementing the attack between the lanes, junior Enrique Roy dominated on the boards, cleaning up throughout the year and sweeping the diving events at the EISL Championship.

Normally the Crimson’s failure to win any of the high-value relay events would have sunk attempts to reclaim the league title, but Roy’s sweep on the boards negated Princeton’s advantage in that category and allowed Harvard to emerge victorious.

—Staff writer Timothy J. McGinn can be reached at mcginn@fas.harvard.edu.

MEN’S SWIMMING

& DIVING

RESULTS 8-1 in duels, 7th at Texas Invitational, 1st at EISLs, 31st at NCAAs

COACH Timothy D. Murphy

CAPTAINS Dan Shevchik and Cory Walker

HIGHLIGHTS Harvard retakes the EISL crown with a victory over defending champions Princeton. John Cole and Dan Shevchik win three events apiece to lead the way. Cole takes seventh at NCAAs after a second-place finish at the Texas Invitational.