Harvard Remains Perfect Against Quakers

Sharing the pool with an Ivy League opponent for the first time in over a month, the Harvard men’s swimming and diving team (6-0, 4-0 Ivy) gave the rest of the league something to fear. The Crimson trounced the visiting Penn Quakers (3-3, 2-3) 213-85 this past Saturday.

Harvard won 14 of the day’s 16 events, completely dominating its rival Quakers.

“I think we did what we needed to get done,” said junior distance stand-out Alex Meyer, who placed first in the 400-yard IM. “When everyone’s pretty stressed out with exams and quite a workload, it’s hard to come to practice and make room for swimming—to swim well like this given the circumstances is pretty good.”

In addition to the obstacle of reading period time strain, the Crimson’s feat is made even more remarkable by the fact that many of the Harvard swimmers were racing in “off-events,” ones that they normally do not compete in.

“It was good to be able to branch out from what we’ve all been normally swimming,” senior Bill Jones said.

Jones, who usually swims the 100- and 200-yard butterfly, was one of the Crimson’s two swimmers placing first in more than one individual event. Jones captured his signature 100-yard butterfly with a time of 50.34, and also added a new event to his gold-medal repertoire, placing first in the 200-yard freestyle with a 1:41.22 swim.

Sophomore backstroker Jordan Diekema also posted two individual wins in the 100-yard freestyle and 100-yard backstroke, touching the wall in 47.13 and 50.32, respectively.

“I accomplished what I needed to accomplish based on what my coach told me for today,” Diekema said. “I was pretty happy with how I swam.”

There was one rough patch disrupting Harvard’s day of smooth sailing, however. In the 1000-yard freestyle event, two of the Crimson’s top swimmers were disqualified for ending in the wrong lane. Meyer and senior Eric Lynch, who posted times good enough to claim the top-two spots in the event, were eliminated from scoring for this blunder.

“That’s kind of a rookie mistake and slightly embarrassing,” Meyer said. “I just looked up the heat sheet and I was going to tell everyone what lane they were in and forgot my own.”

The 1000-yard freestyle was not a total loss for Harvard, however, with the silver lining to this lone cloud coming in the form of sophomore Blake Lewkowitz.

Lewkowitz barely edged out Penn’s top swimmer in the event, finishing with a time of 9:35.54 and capturing the top spot for the Crimson.

Apart from individual races, Harvard shone in the relay events as well, placing first in both of the day’s contests. The 200-yard medley relay team of Diekem, Jones, junior Simone Melillo and senior co-captain David Guernsey posted a winning 1:32.45 finish.

The 200-yard freestyle relay team also captured first for the Crimson. Freshmen Nicholas Tan and Graham Frankel, junior Rick McKellar and sophomore Eric Taylor finished with a 1:26.46 time.

Harvard seeks to build off of this weekend’s victory as it reaches the culmination of its dual meet season: the men’s team faces Brown in two weeks followed by the crucial Harvard-Yale-Princeton matchup the following Saturday.

“We just need to stay at it, keep training hard and keep mentally tough,” Diekema said. “We need to be able to keep our momentum up and just be ready to race.”

With the focus already on the HYP meet, which will likely decide the Ivy League title, the Crimson swimmers are gearing up to face their biggest rival, annual powerhouse Princeton. In addition to physical training, Harvard will also need to prepare both mentally and emotionally for the decisive contest.

“We need to have a good, emotionally-positive next three weeks leading up to the [HYP] meet so that we’re confident going into it,” Meyer said. “They’ve also posted some pretty fast times this season, and as long as we don’t let that get under our skin too much,

“I know we can beat them,” he added.

Harvard will be back in action on January 24th, when it welcomes Brown to Blodgett pool.

—Staff writer Alexandra J. Mihalek can be reached at amihalek@fas.harvard.edu.