Aquamen Destroy Brown in Home Opener

The Harvard men's swimming team's tardiness out of the locker room last night at Blodgett Pool was the only time it was slow, as the Crimson crushed Brown, 87-26, in its home opener.

Despite being upset in a close 57-56 meet at Columbia over the weekend, the Crimson (2-1) rebounded and dominated every stroke this time around. The lopsided victory was more of a competition between Harvard swimmers than a meet against the Bruins.

"It was a sobering effect on the team that they could have won at Columbia if they swam like they did today," Harvard Coach Joseph Bernal said.

The Crimson's most striking aspect this season was revealed when the starting lineups were being announced--youth. The team, Bernal's largest ever with 50 members, is comprised mostly of freshmen and sophomores.

This inexperience led to problems against Columbia, as five races were decided by mere tenths of a second, but last night, the talent of Harvard's team more than compensated for its youth.

"We suffered a mental lapse against Columbia where we started to swim the meet defensively. Our inexperience started to show," Bernal said. "Tonight we rebounded back and took charge of the meet, and never relinquished."

For example, take the performance of sophomore freestylist Kevin Williams, who broke meet records in both the 200 and 500. In the latter race, the defending Eastern region champ was particularly impressive, dominating the race from start to finish.

"I swam pretty well, the best so far this year," Williams said. "I hope to do a lot better."

The first race of the evening, the 400 medley relay, provided the blue print for the rest of the meet. Four Harvard teams beat the top Bruin team, with the Crimson foursome of Don Kidd, Dave Mainen, Paul Watson and Albert Wolf winning the race and setting a new meet record with a time of 3:30.39.

Harvard's attempt for a complete shutout of Brown was not halted until the third race, as Crimson swimmers swept the 1000-yd. freestyle and only surrendered third place in the 200.

One of the Bruin's two first-place finishes came in the one-meter diving competition, as senior Will Schaub edged out three Crimson freshmen, Dave Monahan, Robert McDermott and Matt Paulson. But in the three meter competition, the three highly touted Crimson rookies all placed, with McDermott taking first, followed by Monahan and Paulson.

"We were pleased with our performance but we all hope to improve," Paulson said.

While the Crimson divers were showing that they should be capable of filling a huge gap on the Harvard squad, junior Greg Tull proved last night that he is a more than adequate replacement for freestylist Keith Kaplan, who graduated last spring. Tull continued the Crimson's success in freestyle, barely edging out a tight field in both the 50- and 100-yd. events.

The Crimson's greatest strength this season has to be its depth. While the Harvard squad showed enormous strength in the freestyle last night, it also tallied strong performances in the other events.

Senior standout Paul Watson joined Tull and Williams as a multiple winner. Watson took the top spot in the individual medley and also narrowly defeated teammate Chris Kovacs for first place in the 200 backstroke. In addition, Kidd barely missed a meet record in the 100 butterfly.

Rounding out the strokes for the Crimson was perhaps the most pleasant surprise of the the evening in the 200 breaststroke. Australian Scott Hoy, returning from a two-year layoff, set a meet record, completing the race in 2:08.72.

"He wanted to go out doing this thing right and boy is he doing it," Bernal said, referring to Hoy's expectations for his comeback season.

But despite the Crimson's depth and talent, it will still take a strong effort to win the Eastern regional championships in March. Princeton and Penn State, the teams that beat out Harvard in the championships last winter, return strong squads, as does Army.

And the loss of NCAA record breaker David Berkoff is a major loss that will be difficult for the Crimson to overcome. While Bernal is optimistic about the team's chances, certain others are not.

"I just don't think they have the strength and depth the've had in the past," Brown coach Ed Reed said of the Harvard team. "They're going to have problems."

That's easy to say coach. Your team just got mauled.