SEASON RECAP: Despite Loss to Lions, Harvard Recovers to Share EISL Crown

For the Crimson men’s swimming and diving team, a season that began with a surprising loss ended on a high note, as Harvard swimmers added several new records to the books and earned a share of the Eastern Intercollegiate Swimming League (EISL) regular-season title.

After dominant season-opening wins against Cornell and Dartmouth, Harvard dropped a 160.5-139.5 decision to the Lions, ending the Crimson’s streak of 12 straight wins in dual meets. Although it had not lost a dual meet since the 2003-2004 season, Harvard quickly rebounded with a strong showing at the Georgia Invitational and a win over Rutgers.

The Crimson swept through the league season, posting strong victories over the likes of Brown and Navy. In the annual meet between the Big Three of the Ivy League—Harvard, Yale, and Princeton—the Crimson unofficially declared its dominance in the league, winning 14 of the 19 races in the meet.

Sophomore Pat Quinn helped Harvard grab key points in that meet with a second-place finish, upsetting Princeton’s Will Reinhart and lighting a fire under the Crimson swimmers. Yet, the big performance of the day came from co-captain Dave Cromwell, who set a pool record in the 200-yard backstroke.

“After our loss to Columbia earlier in the year, we wanted to make sure that we were still at the top of the league,” co-captain Bill Cocks said. “This meet proved that we’re still a good team, and it was even better to win [the Harvard-Yale-Princeton meet] in our own pool.”

The Crimson further demonstrated its supremacy in the league with a victory the following weekend against Penn, which ran its record to 8-1 in dual meets and ensured Harvard a share of the EISL regular-season title.

In the penultimate meet of the season, the EISL Championships, Harvard fell short of Princeton’s 1,393 points, totaling only 1,287 even though it stuck with the Tigers for the majority of the meet. Crimson athletes Cromwell, sophomore Geoff Rathgeber, and senior diver Danil Rybalko bagged the top three individual awards of the meet.

While the EISL meet is the end of the season for most swimmers, Cromwell and Rathgeber continued onto the NCAA Championships in Atlanta. Cromwell continued his run of outstanding performances with a fourth-place finish in the 200-yard backstroke, breaking his personal best and the league record with a time of 1:41.83. He also received his fifth individual and seventh overall All-American nod.

“Dave just swam lights out,” Rathgeber said. “It was nice to see an Ivy swimmer up there with national champions and Olympians.”

Harvard finished the season 22nd in the season’s final College Swim Coaches Association of America (CSCAA) poll.

—Staff writer Julie R.S. Fogarty can be reached at fogarty2@fas.harvard.edu.