Crimson Rallies To Trump Lions

The Crimson struggled early to get momentum but persevered, and in the end, coach Tim Murphy’s team came home with the win.

Like its football counterparts in New Haven, the Harvard men’s swimming and diving team needed a rally to get the victory, as the Crimson defeated Columbia, 167-133, in New York.

“Columbia was right there with us,” freshman Owen Wurzbacher said. “We really had to step up, and we did.”

Freshman Michael Stanton won the three-meter dive to give Harvard a victory in the first event, but the Lions seemed to be in control of the meet early on, gaining the lead after taking three of the top four spots in the 1000-yard freestyle—canceling out co-captain Alex Meyer’s individual victory.

“We were pretty tired coming into the meet,” senior Mason Brunnick said. “The first half was pretty rough.”

A bright spot was freshman Greg Roop’s individual victory in 200-yard freestyle. On the scoreboard, the performance was just one small win in the midst of back-and forth-battling between the Crimson and the Lions. But his efforts provided a spark for the swimmers after him, particularly because he beat his previous in-season best by two and a half seconds.

“We have better times at the end of the season when we shave and we taper,” Wurzbacher explained. “He was pretty excited. We were all excited.”

“It’s not like we rested,” he added. “For him to step up and go after it like that really set the tone.”

But the momentum didn’t shift until sophomore Rob Newell and Wurzbacher gave the team back-to-back individual victories in the 200-yard backstroke and 200-yard breaststroke. Newell out-touched Columbia’s Darren Pagan by two hundredths of a second, clocking in at 1:53.44.

“[The margin of victory] is basically nothing,” Brunnick said.

An event later, Wurzbacher pulled out a close victory of his own. The rookie passed Columbia’s Ross Ramone in the last 50 yards to take the race. His time of 2:08.17 gave him a half-second margin over Ramone.

“I did what the team needed me to do,” Wurzbacher said. “It definitely wasn’t anything special.”

It was enough, however, to turn the tide for the Crimson.

“Those races…really got our energy going,” Brunnick said.

Brunnick capitalized on the surging momentum with a victory of his own in the next event, the 500-yard freestyle. The senior had been unsatisfied with his performance in the 1,000-yard race, but he made up for it in his second event of the day.

“[My 1000 free] was a good example of how in the first half, we didn’t swim as well as we should have,” he said. “In the second half, a lot of guys stepped up.”

Less than a second after Brunnick redeemed himself, teammate Meyer touched the wall to take second in the race.

“[Meyer] swims with a lot of poise,” Wurzbacher said. “He knows what to do, when to pace himself, when to go. It’s fun to watch him perform.”

Following Brunnick and Meyer’s one-two finish, the Crimson took three of the top four spots in the 100-yard butterfly. Sophomore Nicholas Tan led the way, out-touching Esquen Bruno by one hundredth of a second. From then on, Harvard never looked back, taking four of the five top spots in the 200-yard individual medley, led by sophomore Niall Janney’s first-place finish. Columbia won the final event, the 400-yard freestyle relay, but it was not enough to take the meet from the Crimson.

“It [was] a test to see how tough we are at this point in the season,” Brunnick said. “When we’re tired [we were] still able to swim pretty good times.”