Princeton Aces M. Swim. at H-Y-Ps

On Friday and Saturday the Harvard men's swim team faced college rivals Yale and Princeton in the Harvard-Yale-Princeton (H-Y-P) dual meet.

While Harvard had an easy win over Yale with a final score of 130-33, Princeton proved to be tough competition and Harvard lost with a score of 114-49.

The importance of the H-Y-P meet decreased last year when the decision was made to stop basing the Ivy title on the dual meet record. Titles are no longer determined by the dual meet. Instead the Eastern Conference Championships counts for both the Easterns title and the Ivy title.

Harvard's primary focus is to bring as many athletes as possible to the NCAAs at the end of March. Easterns will serve as the last qualification meet for NCAAs this season.

Despite these long-term goals, the team did treat the H-Y-P meet as an important dual meet and, perhaps more importantly, as a continuation of the traditional college rivalry among the schools.

However, in contrast to Harvard's long-term goals, both the Yale and Princeton teams took this meet as seriously as they have in the past when the Ivy title depended on it. Both teams were shaved and tapered, ready to swim their best times.

Because Harvard chose to save its best times for NCAAs, only those swimmers for whom H-Y-P was the last important meet and will not be going to Easterns and NCAAs, were shaved and tapered.

This primarily affected Harvard's performance in the sprinting events, which also included the relays, because the fastest sprinters were not shaved and tapered.

Princeton also had an advantage because of their excellent freshman swimmers. Not only are Princeton's freshmen fast but they also number 20 as compared to the Harvard team, which has 29 swimmers all together.

Overall, the team swam well considering that the goal of the team is to do well at Easterns and NCAAs. Most of the people who were shaved swam their best times. Both sophomore Ben Rosen and freshman Dan Barnes turned in impressive performances in both the sprint freestyles and the relays.

A few of the unshaved swimmers also made their mark at this meet. After a disappointing swim in the 400 Individual Medley, junior Greg Wriede came from behind in the last 25 yards in the 200 Backstroke to take first place. His performance in the event created an emotional high for the team for that day. Wriede also took second in the 200 Individual Relay.

Senior Mike Kiedel won the 200 Freestyle with a time of 1:36.33 breaking his own pool record. That time would have earned him a spot in finals at NCAAs, quite an accomplishment considering that Kiedel was not shaved or tapered.

Sophomore Tim Martin and junior Denis Sirringhaus took first and second in the 1000 Freestyle in an attempt to turn the meet around for Harvard. Unfortunately, the momentum did not hold and Princeton soon regained its hold on the meet.

"[The Harvard team] knows that the focus is on meets down the line but it was still no less frustrating to lose at H-Y-P," said co-captain Eric Matuszak. "The loss at H-Y-P was frustrating for those who will not be going to Easterns and NCAAs since this was the last important meet that the team will attend as a whole this year and so it would have been great to win. There are only four weeks left in the Ivy League season and we will take revenge at Easterns and show what the team is all about at NCAAs."

Harvard and Princeton have dominated the league for the past several years and the two teams will battle it out again this year at Easterns.

Princeton dominated at H-Y-P but should not be any faster at Easterns. In fact, Princeton took a risk by tapering all of its athletes for this meet because it will be difficult to have the team tapered again in time for Easterns and NCAAs.

Thus Princeton's speed at H-Y-P may be its downfall at Easterns and NCAAs, while Harvard still has the potential to be much faster and prove its strength when it really matters.