Men's Swimming Cruises Past Brown in H-Y-P Tuneup

Although the Bears tried to stay afloat, they were no match for the Harvard men’s swimming and diving team on Friday, as the Crimson bagged a smooth 179-116 win at the Smith Swim Center in Providence, R.I.

Coming into the meet with confidence against Brown, Harvard raced many swimmers in their second and third events, as they hoped to bolster their times as preparation for more difficult meets down the road—particularly next weekend’s showdown against Princeton and Yale.

“We were definitely expecting to win, and we knew that we were going to be able to win swimming a few off-events,” co-captain Brian Fiske said. “That’s why we were able to just work on racing and train for [the Harvard-Yale-Princeton] meet a bit. We were working on our competitiveness and things that we might not be able to work on at some meets that would be much closer.”

Because the Crimson shifted around the lineup, the meet against Brown was closer than it would have been had the swimmers participated in their primary events.

“It’s not like we trampled them,” Fiske said. “They definitely swam well, and they have a small group of guys that’s very competitive against our team, but they just don’t have that many guys. And some of us were not swimming our best times [because] we were swimming second and third events, and we knew that would be a challenge.”

Yet Harvard still remained ahead of the Bears overall. Co-captain Jason Degnan-Rojeski grabbed first in the 100 backstroke, while sophomore Bill Jones nailed first in the 50 freestyle. Sophomore Tim Parent and junior Geoff Rathgeber came out on top in the 200 breaststroke and 100 breaststroke, respectively.

The Crimson reigned victorious in the distance races as well. Harvard took the top two spots of the 400 medley relay, with freshman Dan Furman anchoring the back half of the race. Junior Sam Wollner headed a 1-2-3 finish in the 1,000 freestyle, coming in at 9:21.67, while freshman Alex Meyer led another sweep in the 500 freestyle.

“We one-two’ed the first event, which is a relay, and we one-two-three’ed in the 1,000 free, so we did pretty well in distance,” Meyer said. “That’s usually a strong point for us.”

The Harvard divers also knocked the Bears out of the water, as junior Lucas Sanders clinched first at the one-meter boards.

“It’s impressive to see him do that because he’s been injured for a while, and he pulled off a first, so we were happy to see that,” Meyer said. “He hasn’t even [dived] in a meet for a while, so that’s a good comeback for him.”

With Friday’s victory under its belt, Harvard is focusing its full attention on the upcoming meet against Yale and Princeton, which will be held this weekend in Princeton, N.J. The Tigers pose a significant challenge: the two squads share identical 3-1 records against their common Ivy opponents, although versus Navy, the Crimson won and Princeton lost.

“It’s going to be a tight event,” Fiske said. “We’re coming to their pool, and they’ve never lost ever in their pool. We’re going down there. They know that, and we know that, so we’re getting our heads in the game for a tough fight.”

—Staff writer Courtney D. Skinner can be reached at cskinner@fas.harvard.edu.