The Harvard men’s swimming and diving team captured as many events as its nine opponents combined yesterday at the Eastern Intercollegiate Swimming League (EISL) Championships, but sits behind Princeton in second place after the first day of competition.

The Tigers struck first, winning the opening 200-yard freestyle relay by 0.12 seconds over Navy. The Crimson finished in third, 0.86 seconds off the pace.

Princeton won both the freestyle relays at the H-Y-P meet earlier this season as well, despite strong improvement by Harvard’s relays compared to performances in years past.

Three Tiger finishers in the top eight in the 500-yard freestyle, compared to just one for the Crimson—sophomore Billy Gray, who finished fifth—allowed Princeton to extend its early lead. In all, the Tigers landed five swimmers in the top-24, compared to just two for Harvard.

In a meet that awards overall team depth, those points add up quickly. While the Crimson earned a combined 30 points in the second event, Princeton racked up a whopping 104, more than accounting for the Tigers’ 67.5-point lead.

Harvard struck back in the 200-yard individual medley, with senior Rassan Grant taking first and junior Cameron Moccari fourth. But because of the high number of Princeton swimmers finishing in the top-24, the Tigers actually added another 15 points to their lead.

The opposite was true of the 50-yard freestyle. Princeton’s only top-24 finisher, Will Reinhardt, won, but four top-16 finishes for the Crimson—highlighted by junior Andrew Krna’s fourth place—cut the deficit by 37.5 points.

The dominant tandem of senior Enrique Roy and sophomore Danil Rybalko swept the top-two places on the one-meter boards to chop off another 38 points.

Harvard’s medley relay—after being swept by Princeton at the championships last year—dominated the Tigers’, with sophomore David Cromwell, Grant, junior Ryan Smith and sophomore Mark Knepley coasting to a 4.34-second victory in which the Crimson turned in the fastest split times on all but the final lap.

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