*Hello Friends of Harvard Swimming*
Geoff Rathgeber helped lead the Men's team to a 2nd place finish at
the EISL Championships.
The Men's team accomplished a number of impressive goals.
2 NCAA "A" Standards
9 NCAA "B" Standards
29 US National Standards
1 Harvard Team Record
Won 7 individual Events, 1 Relay
3 Pool Records and 1 EISL Record
45 Personal Best Times
Luke Sanders 1 Meter Diving Champion
High Point Winner Geoff Rathgeber
While we did not accomplish our goal of a EISL Championship I'm very
proud of the team's effort.
Below is a day by day edited version of the articles posted on
gocrimson.com.
Rathgeber, Sanders Claim EISL Titles; Harvard 2nd After Day 1
Geoff Rathgeber swam the second-fastest 200 IM in the nation this season
in Thursday's finals
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Courtesy: DSPics.com
Geoff Rathgeber swam the second-fastest 200 IM in the nation this season
in Thursday's finals
*PRINCETON, N.J. --* Junior Geoff Rathgeber
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shattered his own school and league records in the 200-yard individual
medley, and junior Lucas Sanders
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captured the league championship in one-meter diving as Harvard finished
the first day of competition in second place at the Eastern
Intercollegiate Swimming League championships Thursday at DeNunzio Pool.
Princeton finished the first round of finals with the advantage as the
Tigers scored 442 points in the evening session. Harvard holds second
place with 353.5 points, followed by Cornell (304), Navy (266.5) and
Columbia (266) to round out the top five. Rathgeber provided the meets
top individual performance thus far as he cruised to his third straight
league championship in the 200 IM. He touched the wall Thursday in
1:44.67, bettering his own school, league and meet records of 1:46.11
(set at last year's meet) and erasing the previous pool record of
1:46.92, set by Tennessee's Andrew Thirlwell in 2006.
Sanders, meanwhile, was first in a 30-man field in one-meter diving as
the junior scored 305.90 points to take a comfortable win as no other
diver came within five points of the 300 mark. Harvard opened the meet
by grabbing the second-place points in the 200 freestyle relay as the
Crimson's quartet of Rathgeber, David Guernsey
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Bill Jones
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and Pat Quinn finished in 1:21.66, behind Cornell's winning time, but
ahead of three other squads that all finished within two-tenths of a
second of Harvard's group.Cornell swimmers took the top two places in
the 500 freestyle, but Harvard emerged with the lead in the team
standings after that event by virtue of two scorers in the championship
final and two of the top three places in the consolation race. Sam
Wollner
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and Eric Lynch
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both turned in provisional NCAA championship-qualifying times as Wollner
took third in 4:24.19, and Lynch was fourth in 4:26.09. The next event,
the 50 freestyle, saw Quinn and Guernsey deliver top-four finishes as
Quinn took second in 20.43 seconds, while Guernsey was fourth in 20.49.
After Sanders's win on the diving board, Harvard capped Thursday's
action by taking second in the 400 medley relay. Rathgeber and Quinn
joined Jason Degnan-Rojeski
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and Dan Jones
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to finish in an NCAA provisional time of 3:14.88. Cornell took first in
a meet and pool record 3:13.61.
Crimson Remains In Second Through Day 2 of EISL Championships
Sam Wollner won the EISL title in the 1,000-yard freestyle Friday
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Courtesy: DSPics.com
Sam Wollner won the EISL title in the 1,000-yard freestyle Friday
PRINCETON, N.J. -- Geoff Rathgeber claimed another pool record and hit
another NCAA provisional qualifying time as Harvard remained in second
place through the second day of competition at the Eastern
Intercollegiate Swimming League championships Friday at DeNunzio Pool.
Rathgeber, who set meet and pool records in the 200 individual medley in
Thursday's opening day of competition, followed that effort by taking
first in the 400 IM Friday, swimming 3:47.59 to break the DeNunzio Pool
record and win the event by nearly four seconds. The Crimson was dealt a
setback in the first event of Friday's finals as Harvard was
disqualified from the 200-yard medley relay while the Crimson was ahead
in the race.
Harvard was able to make up some of the gap in the next event as junior
Sam Wollner edged Princeton's top swimmer for first place in the 1,000
freestyle, swimming 9:06.36. Eric Lynch claimed fourth in that event.
while Alex Meyer and Mason Brunnick took seventh and eighth, respectively.
Harvard placed three swimmers in the championship final of the 100
butterfly as Dan Jones took second place while Bill Jones was third and
Pat Quinn sixth. Harvard's top finisher in the 200 freestyle was David
Guernsey, who took the fifth-place points behind a pair of swimmers from
Cornell and Columbia. The Crimson didn't have an entrant in the
championship race off the 100 breaststroke, through Harvard had the top
two places in the consolation final as Joc Christiana and Simone Melillo
took ninth and 10th, respectively. Jason Degnan-Rojeski followed with a
fourth-place finish in the 100 backstroke. Harvard finished the meet by
taking third in the 800 freestyle relay.
Rathgeber Named Most Outstanding Swimmer As Harvard Takes 2nd At EISL
Championships
Geoff Rathgeber was named Most Outstanding Swimmer at the EISL
championships
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Courtesy: DSPics.com
Geoff Rathgeber was named Most Outstanding Swimmer at the EISL
championships
*PRINCETON, N.J. -- *Junior Geoff Rathgeber picked up his third
individual event win of the Eastern Intercollegiate Swimming League
championships Saturday, earning Most Outstanding Swimmer honors, as
Harvard placed second to Princeton in the team standings of the
three-day event at DeNunzio Pool. Harvard had made a run at Princeton's
point total early in Saturday's finals, but the Tigers, who won just one
of the 21 events in the three days, used their depth to capture the EISL
title for the second straight year. Princeton won the meet with 1,405
points, while Harvard was second with 1,220.5. Yale took third with
1,036 points, edging fourth-place Columbia, which had 1,031. Cornell,
which won the EISL dual meet championship, was fifth in the championship
meet with 963.5 points, followed by Navy (801.5), Brown (624), Penn
(580.5) and Dartmouth (316). Harvard, which entered the meet trailing
Princeton by 120.5 points, was able to put a sizable dent into the
Tigers' lead early as the Crimson rode a 1-2 finish from Sam Wollner and
Eric Lynch in the 1,650-yard freestyle. Both swimmers hit provisional
NCAA qualifying times as Wollner touched first in 15:15.37, and Lynch
was a stroke off the pace in 15:15.56. Freshmen Alex Meyer and Mason
Brunnick took the sixth and seventh places for Harvard, which closed to
within 75.5 points of the Tigers after the event. The gap closed to 50.5
points after Rathgeber swam away with his third pool record in the 200
backstroke. He won the race by more than two seconds on the field,
touching the wall in 1:43.54 to automatically qualify for the NCAA meet.
That time broke the pool record of 1:44.20, held by former teammate
David Cromwell '06. Senior Jason Degnan-Rojeski was fifth in the event,
while no Princeton swimmers reached the championship final, allowing
Harvard to get within striking distance of the team lead. Harvard's Pat
Quinn and David Guernsey took third and fifth in the 100 freestyle,
though Princeton also had two swimmers in the championship final to
remain ahead of the Crimson. The Tigers were able to widen their lead in
the 200 breaststroke, when Joc Christiana's solid sixth-place finish was
offset by a fourth- and an eighth-place finish from Princeton swimmers.
Princeton then had four of the top eight finishers in a fast 200
butterfly, to gain even more distance between the field, despite a
fifth-place showing from Dan Jones and a seventh-place effort from Bill
Jones. Dan Jones's time of 1:47.64 was good for provisional NCAA
championship consideration. The Crimson's Lucas Sanders, who had taken
the EISL title in one-meter diving Thursday, was sixth on the
three-meter board Saturday. Harvard closed the meet in fine fashion,
upsetting Cornell's top-seeded quartet in the 400 freestyle relay. The
Big Red, which had won all of the previous relays in the meet, and had
the only group to break three minutes in qualifying, was 12-hundredths
behind the Crimson heading into the final leg. But Rathgeber held off
Cornell standout Mike Smit to touch in 2:57.23, provisionally qualifying
the Crimson for the NCAA meet.
Rathgeber shared the Most Outstanding Swimmer award with Yale's Alex
Righi. Smit, meanwhile, won the Harold Ulen Award as the meets
top-scoring athlete during his career. Yale's Jeff Lichtenstein took
home the Karl B. Michael Award as the meets top diver.
Led by five graduating seniors our ECAC squad captured the Men's
Championship. Alex Paddington,
Nick Cirella, Pat Morrissey, David Sanford, and Kevin Koslosky each
contributed and finished off their
careers in style. The guys took advantage of the opportunity to swim
fast and set the tone for the Eastern
team headed to Princeton. I'm proud of their individual and team
performance.
As always thanks for your support
Tim
We hope to see you at Easterns!
Harvard Wins ECAC Open Championship
Tommy Gray won the 1,650-yard freestyle to pace Harvard to the ECAC title
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Tommy Gray won the 1,650-yard freestyle to pace Harvard to the ECAC title
*CAMBRIDGE, Mass. --* Paced by Tommy Gray
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win in the 1,650-yard freestyle, Harvard's men's swimming and diving
team completed a wire-to-wire win by taking the ECAC Open Championship
Sunday afternoon at Blodgett Pool.
While Gray's win was Harvard's only event win in the 20-event meet, the
Crimson's depth proved to be the difference as Harvard consistently was
able to place multiple swimmers in the championship finals.
Harvard won the meet with 513 points to finish well ahead of
second-place Marist, which scored 458.5 points. Columbia was third with
387.5 points, followed by Johns Hopkins (378), Rider (369), Binghamton
(366), Yale (358), Penn (236.5), Loyola (159) and Iona (114.5) to round
out the top 10. Eighteen schools scored points in the three-day event.
Gray, who had taken second in the 500 freestyle in Friday's opening day
of competition, cruised to a six-second win the 1,650 as he clocked
15:59.58. Gray was one of three Crimson swimmers in the top eight as Tim
Parent
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took sixth and Kevin Koslosky
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was eighth.
Freshman Michael Dunn
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reached the championship final of the 200 backstroke and delivered a
third-place finish, while senior Patrick Morrissey
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followed with a sixth-place effort in the 100 freestyle.
Senior Nick Cirella
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took third in the 200 breaststroke, while Harvard had two of the top
four finishers in the 200 butterfly. Freshman Rick McKellar
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touched in second place, while first-year man Robert Lynch
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was fourth.
The Crimson took ninth in the closing 400 freestyle relay, but Harvard's
lead proved to be insurmountable.
Harvard will look for back-to-back championships next weekend as the
Crimson competes in the Eastern Intercollegiate Swimming League
championships at Princeton's DeNunzio Pool.
