Underclassmen Lead Men's Swimming and Diving to Big Victories

The Harvard men’s swimming and diving team (3-0, 2-0 Ivy) continued its undefeated streak on Friday and Saturday, posting big wins against Dartmouth (0-2, 0-2) and Cornell (2-1, 1-1). The Crimson—which has not lost a regular season meet since it fell to Virginia and Virginia Tech in January of 2014—claimed first in 10 out of the 16 events, highlighted by a pool record in the 200-medley relay.

With its 208-87 and 188.5-106.5 defeat of Dartmouth and host Cornell, respectively, this weekend, Harvard has now won 44 straight meets against the Big Green and nine straight against the Big Red.

The diving team kicked off the meet on Friday with a first place win in the 3-meter competition and a two-three-four finish in the 1-meter. Sophomore David Pfeifer won the 3-meter competition with a score of 351.65—more than 22 points better than the second place finisher—and came in third in the 1-meter. Dartmouth’s Brett Gillis and classmate Bobby Ross finished ahead of Pfeifer.

On the swimming side of the pool, it was a night to remember for the Crimson underclassmen, who scored all but two of the Crimson’s eight individual swimming victories.

“A general sentiment on the team is that we’re all really excited about how the underclassmen are doing,” sophomore Jack Boyd said. “We’ve got a couple really good recruiting classes in a row, and they’re really demonstrating their talent in these early meets.”

Harvard kicked things off with a bang in the very first race, the 200-medley relay. The Crimson team of sophomores Koya Osada, Steven Tan, and Shane McNamara, along with junior Paul O’Hara, claimed first and set a new pool record along the way. Their time of 1:30.16 was almost three-quarters of a second faster than the previous record.

Harvard went on to win the next three events and five out of the next six.

“Going into the meet, we were pretty confident that we’d come out with the win just based on our past history with Cornell and Dartmouth, so our main focus was on the process rather than the outcome,” junior Aly Abdel Khalik said. “That’s the main thing that will translate as the season progresses.”

Tan, who played an important role in setting the 200-medley pool record, also notched big victories in two other events. He came in first in the 100-yard backstroke with a time of 49.23, half a second faster than the second place competitor, and dominated the field in the 100-yard butterfly with a time of 48.10—almost a second and a half faster than anyone else.

“Steven Tan dropped some crazy times on the 100-back, 100-fly, and the relay,” Khalik said. “And overall, the underclassmen have been working really hard and focusing in practice. They’ve been doing really well.”

The underclassmen again led the charge in one-two-three Crimson finishes in three other events. Boyd, a sophomore, just out-touched junior Khalik and freshman Brennan Novak in the 200 free—with less than a tenth of a second separating the three. Freshman Daniel Tran dominated the 200 backstroke in a time of 1:47.66, followed in second and third by Crimson upperclassmen Christian Yeager and Jack Manchester.

Freshman Logan Houck also blitzed the field in the distance events, claiming first in the 500 free by three seconds in another Crimson podium sweep and also winning the 1000 free by a substantial margin of 17 seconds.

Elsewhere, Harvard junior Max Yakubovich won the 200 butterfly, out-touching teammate Jacob Luna, and junior Paul O'Hara claimed first in the 50 free to help cap off the Harvard victory.

Despite the early season wins and the longstanding string of Harvard success, the team says it remains focused on the present.