Harvard Dives Into New Year With Strong Finish

The Harvard men’s and women’s diving team traveled to Princeton this past weekend to faceoff against some of the top competition in the Ivy League at the annual Princeton Diving Invitational.

On the men’s side, Harvard divers were paired against divers from the University of Pennsylvania. The two schools’ swimming teams met in a dual meet this past weekend in Philadelphia.

Over two days of diving, the Crimson contingent of freshman Michael Stanton, sophomore Taylor Nickel, and juniors Zach Ranta and Henry Winslow put up formidable scores against a competitive field of Quaker opponents. The divers’ results contributed to an overall Harvard victory, outscoring Penn, 183-117.

Stanton had strong performances in both events, finishing first in the three-meter dive with a score of 319.73 and third in the one-meter event scoring 280.28. Ranta performed equally strong taking second in the one-meter event with 291.30 points, just four points behind the Quaker winner, Jeff Cragg. Ranta also took third place in the three-meter event.

“I thought we had some really good finishes towards the top end,” said Nickel. “We were looking really strong especially after winter break and only a couple weeks of training.”

The Harvard women also had strong finishes, particularly in the platform diving competition where freshmen Teagan Lehrmann and Brittany Powell took third with 238.05 points and fourth with 231.40 points, respectively. The pair of rookies qualified for the NCAA Zone A Diving Championships with the performances.

Junior Jenny Reese led the way for the Crimson in Saturday’s springboard events. Reese finished runner-up in the one-meter with 262.20 points, only seven points behind the winner, Princeton’s Carolyn Littlefield. Sophomore Leslie Rea barely missed a second-place finish in the three-meter event by a mere 1.12 points. Reese followed Rea in fourth with 244.88 points.

“With the solid performances this past weekend and some good training ahead of us, we should be pretty strong going into HYP and eventually Ivies,” said Nickel of both diving teams.

The two-day competition came during the long winter break and after the teams had had only some limited training together. The Harvard swimming and diving teams leave this week for a training trip in Hawaii and a chance to improve on the dives that have already helped bring victory.

“We are looking forward to just having some more time in the water,” said Nickel. “Getting hours in the water, training, doing dives, and just being away from the stress of school for a change are going to be great.”

—Staff writer Jessica L. Flakne can be reached at jflakne@fas.harvard.edu.