Men's Swimming and Diving Extends Win Streak Against Brown

The last time Brown (3-3, 0-3 Ivy) defeated the Harvard men’s swimming and diving team (4-0, 4-0 Ivy), George H.W. Bush was president, Neil Rudenstine was President of Harvard, and many of the current Crimson swimmers were not yet born. Prior to Saturday’s matchup, the Crimson were 80-2 all-time against the Bears, winning the last 19 matchups.

Despite a strong start to their season with three wins against non-Ivy opponents, the Bears losing streak against Harvard has continued into 2014. With a 194-86 victory over the Bears Saturday at Blodgett Pool, the Crimson continued its unbeaten season, with all victories thus far coming against Ancient Eight opponents. Harvard swept the Dartmouth/Cornell tri meet and defeated Columbia in November.

It was the Crimson’s first meet since December 5th, when the team competed in the Texas Invitational, but a training trip to Puerto Rico kept Harvard in racing shape.

“We just got off a very tough week of training in Puerto Rico, and we had a really late flight that got delayed,” senior co-captain Chris Satterthwaite said. “A lot of guys were a little concerned about how they were going to swim, but I think the work paid off.”

Harvard came into the meet ranked No. 24 by the College Swimming Coaches Association.

In its only dual meet at Blodgett, the Crimson honored its eight seniors, swimmers Satterthwaite, Will Brophy, Danny Crigler, Travis Downs, Oliver Lee, Jack Pretto, and Jason Ting, as well as diver Joe Zarrela, for their accomplishments in their four seasons. Since these seniors joined the team, Harvard has placed second at Ivy League Championships every year.

“We have a very tight group of seniors,” Satterthwaite said. “We’ve grown a lot closer as a closer not only over the last four years but also this year…It’s kind of a cool culmination today of our last four years. “

Many of the seniors earned wins on Saturday. Satterthwaite led the charge with victories in the 500-meter freestyle with a time of 4:32.12 and as a member of the 200-meter relay, as well as placing in the top three for the 50-meter freestyle, and 200-meter medley.

“I don’t typically swim the 500, but I’ve raced our distance guys enough to know they always have a very strong finish,” Satterthwaite said. “My thought process was that I knew if I wanted to have a shot at racing our own distance guys I would have to be pretty fresh at the end and have something left in the tank.”

Fellow senior Zarrella was also a strong force on the diving board, sweeping the diving events with victories in the 1m and 3m competitions with scores of 293.48 and 337.50 points, respectively.

Although all eyes were on the seniors in this dual meet, the freshmen of the team pulled out strong performances, with victories from Jack Manchester and Eric Ronda in the 200 backstroke and 200 breaststroke.

Standing out among the class of 2017 was Cliff Goertmiller, who completed the task of the Ironman meet. A swim team tradition for nearly fifty years, it is an event where one freshman is selected by the upperclassman to compete in every event in a meet. He may not have won any points for the Crimson, but his effort was certainly a standout one.

“Every time someone was diving in to race he had to be racing. Nobody else swam in that lane. That was his lane” Satterthwaite said. “It’s a cool thing we do to recognize a freshman’s hard work, and we select someone we see as a real leader in the freshman class.”

Although the team was honoring the seniors for their last dual meet at home, there is still a lot of swimming to be done.

“For the next meet we are going to make sure we’re getting out faster and being a little bit more aggressive in our races and making sure we get everything we can out of each race” Lee said.

The victory keeps Harvard in a tie for first place in the Ivy League against Ancient Eight foe Princeton, which is also undefeated. The two teams will face each other in a tri meet at Yale January 31st.

—Staff writer Theresa Hebert can be reached at thebert@college.harvard.edu.