M. Swimming Routs Penn In Final

Thirteen may be a cursed number for most, but for the Harvard men’s swimming and diving team it was a lucky number.

The Crimson (8-0) ended up winning 13 out of 15 events in its last meet of the season against Penn with a final score of 200-99.

“We actually didn’t do very well compared to our performance in other meets,” freshman Sam Wollner said. “But we did expect to beat Penn by that large a margin.”

While the team as a whole took home most of the wins of the night, there were multiple individuals who brought in more than one first-place finish.

“From the start [the Quakers] didn’t really seem to be intense about swimming us,” freshman Geoff Rathgeber said. “We still tried our best in every event and we came out on top in everything.”

The most impressive performance was by Rathgeber, who took first place in all the events in which he competed.

Rathgeber was the first one in the pool to start out the meet as the first leg of the 200-yard medley relay. Sophomore Joc Christiana, senior James Lawler and freshman Pat Quinn finished out the relay with a time of 1:35.20 for the win. The Crimson’s other relay teams also did well, with the B-team finishing third and the C-team right behind in fourth.

Rathgeber’s first individual win came in the 100-yard backstroke, in which he led a one-two-three finish. He was followed by sophomore Jonathan Loch in second and senior Ryan Smith in third.

“I knew that it wasn’t going to be that challenging,” Rathgeber said. “I tried to focus on small things like turns and breakouts in my strokes and it paid off for me and I did what I wanted to do.”

Rathgeber also took home first in the 200-yard backstroke, with Wollner taking third.

Rathgeber then finished out the evening by winning the 200-yard IM, followed by sophomore Jason Degnan-Rojeski in second and Smith in fourth.

“[Rathgeber] came in and did well and he has performed really well in every meet this year,” Wollner said. “Hopefully we can all do that well.”

Rathgeber was not the only one to bring in multiple first-place finishes for Harvard. Every other member of the winning 200-yard medley relay also brought in other wins for the Crimson team.

Christiana went on to lead a one-two finish the 100-yard breaststroke, followed by senior Alexander Siroky in second.

Lawler helped to finish out the meet with a win in the 100-yard butterfly, followed by Quinn with a second-place finish and junior Stephen Norberg in fourth.

But Quinn would do more than finish second in the butterfly. Quinn also led a one-two finish in the 50-yard freestyle event, followed by Lawler in second.

As well as being the anchor to the winning 200 medley-relay team, Quinn also anchored the 200-yard freestyle relay team, helping them to a win along with juniors Brian Zingale and Mark Knepley and senior Andrew Krna. The Harvard B-team also did well, taking the third spot in the relay.

“We mixed it up a little bit and got people to do some off events, and that was true with the relays as well,” Rathgeber said. “So it was nice to win [the relays] that way.”

Knepley was also major force in this meet, aside from his first-place relay finish. He took first place in the 200-yard freestyle, followed by Krna in third, and first place in the 100-yard freestyle, followed by sophomore Alexander Paddington in third.

Junior John Hastrup had a good day at the pool, leading a one-two-three finish in the 500-yard freestyle event. He was followed by Siroky in second and Degnan-Rojeski in third. And while the 500-yard free was his only win, Hastrup finished second in the 400-yard IM, one of two events in which the Quakers took the top spot.

Junior Bill Cocks also finished second to a Penn swimmer in 200-yard backstroke followed by senior John Cole in third, the only other event that the Quakers would win in this meet. But Cocks did not settle for just a second-place finish, taking first in the 200-yard butterfly earlier in the day.

The divers were not shown up by the swimmers in this meet. Junior Danil Rybalko won both the one-meter and three-meter events. And while freshman Lucas Sanders finished in an uncharacteristic fifth place in the three-meter diving event, he took second place in the one-meter right behind Rybalko.

“[Sanders] is normally right at the top and yesterday he just had an off day,” Rathgeber said. “But I am sure he will be back for Easterns. He always comes back.”

With this win, Harvard finishes out the dual-meet season undefeated. The Crimson has a short break before hitting the pool Feb. 24-27 to compete in the ECAC Championships in Pittsburgh.

“It’s special [ending the season undefeated], but at the same time we know that we are not perfect if we don’t win Easterns,” Rathgeber said. “It’s nice on the one hand but we still have work to do to win Easterns.”

—Staff writer Abigail M. Baird can be reached at ambaird@fas.harvard.edu.