UPDATED: March 5, 2012, at 9:05 p.m.

After commencing day two of competition with a promising 27-point lead, the Harvard men’s swimming and diving team (6-2, 6-0 Ivy) sank to second place behind No. 24 Princeton (8-0, 7-0) in the 2012 Ivy League Swimming and Diving Championships, held this weekend held at Princeton.

The Tigers seized this year’s title with 1,523.5 points, while the Crimson trailed in second place (1,446). Columbia claimed third (1,107.5), followed by Yale (966.5), Dartmouth (764.5), Penn (756), Brown (596.5), and Cornell (575.5).

“We swam well. We just came up a little short,” sophomore Chris Satterthwaite said.

This weekend’s result represented Princeton’s fourth consecutive season title and Harvard’s four straight second-place finish.

The Lions posted their greatest point total ever in the championship meet, earning their third straight third-place finish. And the Big Green had its best result since 1981, coming in fifth.

Starting the championship the same way they would finish, the Crimson and the Tigers took turns leading the 200-yard free relay.

Yet just as in the meet, Princeton edged ahead of Harvard, as the Tigers touched the wall first at 1:18.92, winning the event for the fourth consecutive year and swimming the second fastest time in meet history.

The Crimson team—composed of Satterthwaite and classmate Oliver Lee and freshmen Griffin Schumacher and Zachary Walters—trailed by less than a half of a second (1:19.17) while Columbia took third, clocking in at 1:20.49.

“The relays were an area that we were a little weak in, but we knew that coming into the meet,” Satterthwaite said.

In the 500 free, Princeton’s Paul Noelle won his first of three events of the weekend, clocking in at 4:18.92. Yale’s Rob Harder followed with a time of 4:20.66, and Columbia’s Dominik Koll finished third (4:21.68).

In the one-meter dive, Harvard freshman Michael Mosca earned the title with a mark of 359.55 points. Princeton’s Stephen Vines came in a close second (347.65), and Penn senior Jeff Cragg took third.

The Tigers won the final event of the night by logging a DeNunzio Pool and meet record in the 400 medley relay with a time of 3:11.38.

But the Crimson finished the day in the lead, 27 points ahead of the Tigers, 471-444. With 289 points, the Bulldogs trailed both teams by more than one hundred points.

In day two of the meet, several pool and meet records were shattered, as the Princeton men stole the lead.