Men’s Swimming Cruises Through Naval Blockade

If 26-days worth of rust wasn’t going to stop the Harvard men’s swimming and diving team, then the squad from Navy certainly didn’t have much chance of accomplishing the task.

The Crimson came within a combined 0.36 seconds of sweeping first-place in all 16 events contested, handily defeating the Midshipmen 204-94 at Lejeune Hall on Saturday despite varying its lineup following the long layoff.

“We make the best of whatever schedule we have,” co-captain Kemi George said. “It’s a challenge for us to make our training environment one that is competitive…Come meet time it will not be hard for guys on the team to step up and perform on a competitive level.”

With that mindset, Harvard sprinted out to an early lead, touching the wall first in five of the first seven races. The advantage would have been more substantial were it not for two razor-thin Navy victories in the 200-meter freestyle and then the 100-meter breaststroke two events later.

After the Crimson captured the first two races, sophomore Mark Knepley blazed to an early lead in the 200 freestyle, with a 0.78-second advantage between himself and Midshipman Marshall Boyd one-quarter of the way through the race.

But Boyd slowly whittled down the lead, cutting the divide to just 0.23 seconds entering the final 50 meters.

And Boyd was 0.24 seconds faster on that last leg, eking out a 0.01-second victory.

Harvard, however, did sweep second through fourth, with freshman John Voith and sophomore Billy Gray following Knepley.

Two events later, the result was nearly the same. Senior Jonathan Lin slipped ahead of the field early, but was ultimately caught and nipped at the finish by Navy’s Grant Gherke, who touched the pad just five-hundredths of a second earlier. Crimson freshman Joc Christiana took third.

“I don’t think it’s discouraging as much as it is a wake up call,” co-captain Kevin Budris said. “There haven’t been that many close races for us this season. It’s disappointing to come up on the short side of those races, but it’s good that it happened at this race, that we can use this to prepare for upcoming weeks.”

The result was typical on the afternoon—though Harvard rarely lost, the Crimson took at least two of the top three places in all but one event, locking up several points in each race.

And unlike last year, in which a small handful of individuals secured the bulk of Harvard’s race wins, eight separate competitors took first for the Crimson on Saturday.

Junior Cameron Moccari and sophomores David Cromwell and Danil Rybalko led the charge, locking up top honors twice each.

“I think that is a big part of what this team is this year,” Budris said. “On the surface, it seemed like we lost a lot of big names. What we have this year is a much younger group of guys that are looking for their place on the team. There’s a lot of different people swimming with a lot to offer.”

Moccari proved too much to handle in both the 200-meter butterfly and the 400-meter individual medley, heading Harvard’s sweep of the top three in each. In the butterfly, junior Ryan Smith and sophomore Bill Cocks rounded out the triad. Each won an event of his own, with Smith capturing the 100-meter butterfly and Cocks the 200-meter breaststroke.

In the individual medley, junior Alexander Siroky and freshman Jonathan Loch placed second and third, respectively.

Cromwell dominated the backstroke events as he has throughout the still-young season, winning the 100-meter event by 3.09 seconds and the 200-meter by 4.81.

Rybalko was equally dominant on the diving boards, easily distancing himself from co-captain Enrique Roy, who took second on the one-meter and third on the three-meter.

—Staff writer Timothy J. McGinn can be reached at mcginn@fas.harvard.edu.