Eastern Swimmers to Invade Blodgett

Five hundred of the best swimmers on the East Coast will descend on Cambridge today through Saturday, as Blodgett Pool plays host to the 49th annual Eastern Seaboard Swimming and Diving Championships.

Over 30 teams are scheduled to compete in the three-day championship meet, which begins today at noon with the first session of trials. Finals begin each evening at 7:30 p.m.

Princeton and Penn State are the co-favorites to claim the team championship. The Tigers are shooting for their third consecutive title, their 10th overall, which would push them ahead of Yale for most titles won.

Harvard, led by Olympic gold and silver medalist David Berkoff, has hopes to finish within the top three spots in team scoring. But considering early-season losses to Columbia (the EISL dual-meet co-champion) and Army, it may be a tall order for the young Crimson.

"Going in, we would like to find ourselves ahead of the pack, if not with the two favorites," Coach Joe Bernal said. "If either Princeton or Penn State swims poorly, I feel that a second-place finish would be reward enough for a season of rebuilding."

Last year at Smith Swimming Center in Providence, R.I., the Tigers pulled out a tough 32-point victory over the Crimson, 564-532. But Harvard has since been hurt by both graduation, which took four significant point-scorers, and the loss of Scott Jaffe, who decided to quit the team after being a triple-winner in 1988.

But if a team title is not within reach, there are a number of individual goals which Harvard swimmers are looking to accomplish in this year's Eastern meet.

For Berkoff, competing in his last meet at Blodgett, he would like to go out with a victory in his best event--the 100-yd. backstroke. Additionally, he has his eyes on breaking the American record in the event, which he set three weeks ago in a dual meet with Cornell.

Other members of the Crimson are also very close to the NCAA qualifying standards, and reaching them would give those swimmers a trip to the NCAA Championship meet, held March 30-April 1 in Indianapolis.

Here is how the meet stacks up, with the top swimmers in each team:

Princeton: The Tigers are flying high after clinching a share of their sixth-straight regular-season title last week. A loss to Penn in the early going was their first Ivy League setback in five years.

Princeton is led by junior workhorse Mike Ross, the defending champion in the 500 freestyle and the top returning swimmer in the 200 freestyle. Eric Osborne has aready qualified for the NCAA meet in the 50 freestyle and grabbed the gold medal in the 100 freestyle one year ago.

Senior Richard Korhammer, who took last year off to train for a shot at the Olympic team, is back and should dominate the breaststroke events. Other big contributors for the Tigers should be Ty Nelson in the butterfly, Albert Price in the sprint freestyle and Joshua Glantz in the individual medley.

Penn State: The Nittany Lions have been bogged down in the third position for the past three seasons but feel that this could be the year to jump up to the top spot. The squad is led by senior Dave Rafferty, who should contend for titles in the 200 freestyle and butterfly events.

Other keys to the victory charge for Penn State are Drew VanWinkle, the defending champ in the 400 individual medley, backstroker Walt Sopp and distance swimmer Brad Semle.

Harvard: Even if the Crimson cannot catch the two favorites, it should have quite a few contenders for individual titles. Besides Berkoff, who should dominate the backstroke events, Harvard has Co-Captain Keith Kaplan, the defending Eastern champion in the 50 freestyle.

Sophomore Paul Watson took both of the backstroke races last year, Ken Johnson should be a factor in the 1650 freestyle and the breaststroke crew of Jon Manson, Al Wolf and Joe Zumpano could score in those events. Freshmen to watch are Sumner Anderson, Chris Kovacs, Tom Peterson and Kevin Williams.

Other teams who could play strong roles in the meet are Pittsburgh (last year's fourth-place squad), Brown (fifth), Army, Navy and Columbia.

LaSalle senior Jeff Gershe is the only other returning champion, winning the gold medal in the 1650 freestyle in 1988.

This is the third time that the Eastern Championships have been held at Blodgett since 1978. In 1979 and 1986 at its home pool, the Crimson came away with the team title.

For the first time, included in the meet are two shorter relays--the 200 freestyle and medley relays. These will be contested in addition to those from past meets: the 400 medley, 400 freestyle and 800 freestyle relays. This change corresponds to a similar alteration in the NCAA Championship format.

No matter what the result, the Eastern Championships promises to be three days full of fast-paced swimming and exciting finishes. And possibly an American record or two