The Harvard men’s swimming and diving team traveled to Princeton’s DeNunzio Pool this weekend hoping to defeat the Tigers in its own pool for the first time since 1983. Unfortunately for the Crimson, Princeton successfully defended its home turf and defeated the Crimson 190-163 in the annual Harvard-Yale-Princeton meet.

The Crimson found some solace in the fact that it overcame the Bulldogs 184-169 to complete its dual meet portion of the season with a 7-2 overall record, 6-2 in the EISL—good enough for second place in the league.

Despite the fact that Harvard touched the wall first in 19 events—one fewer than the combined total of the other two squads combined—the Tigers notched enough second and third place finishes to finish atop the podium. Princeton also beat Yale 228-125 to finish with a 5-2 EISL record and a perfect home mark on the season.

“We came into the meet wanting to win,” co-captain Brian Fiske said. “We knew that Princeton and Yale might shave and taper in order to win the meet, and we didn’t want to shave or rest because we’re really focused on the championship meets. It turns out they did shave and taper. It was a tough meet; we had a lot of great swims.”

The Crimson wasted no time in jumping out to an early lead, as it snatched a victory in the 200 yard freestyle relay. Sophomore David Guernsey continued the trend by winning in the next race, the 200 freestyle, and Crimson swimmers finished fourth, fifth, and sixth in the event.

Harvard’s distance swimmers set the mark for the squad, as evidenced by their 1-2-3 finish in the 1650 yard freestyle. Junior Sam Wollner narrowly edged teammate Eric Lynch to grab first, and freshman Alex Meyer rounded out the top three. Wollner and Lynch notched NCAA provisional marks in the event.

In addition, the duo continued their domination in the 500 yard freestyle. This time, Lynch snuck in .02 seconds ahead of Wollner for a strong top two finish. Meyer and fellow freshman Mason Brunnick finished seventh and sixth, respectively, in the event.

“Our distance swimmers swam exceptionally well,” Fiske said. “Sam and Eric got first and second in the two distance events—the mile and the 500-which was really key for us.”

The Crimson relay teams controlled throughout, and notched victories in all four relay events. In the last event of the day—the 400 yard relay—Harvard’s team of Guernsey, freshman Jordan Waterman, sophomore Bill Jones, and junior Pat Quinn trounced the field and finished more than 3.5 seconds ahead of the second-place team. Junior Geoff Rathgeber added individual wins in the 200 and 400 individual medleys, while Quinn swam well enough to grab a second-place finish in the 50 yard freestyle and third in the 100 free.

With the dual meet portion of the season over, the Crimson now looks to the championship meets, beginning with the ECAC Championships on February 16-18 at Harvard’s Blodgett Pool. The following weekend (Feb 22-24) Harvard will again travel to Princeton for the EISL Championships looking to gain revenge against the Tigers.

Because the scoring system for dual and championship meets differs—four swimmers score in each event in dual meets, while 24 score in each championship meet—depth is far more important in championship meets. Because of this, Harvard views the Tigers—who exhibited their depth this weekend—as the team to beat heading into the next phase of their season.

“As always, the goal is to win, and it looks like it will go through Princeton this year,” co-captain Jason Degnan-Rojeski said.

Added Fiske: “Obviously we’re disappointed that we lost this weekend, but we’re very optimistic and excited to see what we can do in the championship events.”