[HMSD] The Season begins

November 5, 2009 Dear Harvard Men’s Swimming and Diving Alumni, October was a productive month for the Men’s Swimming and Diving Team. We had 31 days of strenuous training, swam our first meet of the season and had some excellent swimmers decide that they want to attend Harvard next year. On Friday October 16, we traveled to Boston College for a scrimmage vs. BC. Our swimmers were tired as they swam a full practice in the morning, lifted weights in the afternoon and had an unusually late meet start time of 8pm. We saw several mentally and physically tough performances especially from our Freshmen swimmers. The divers were also very strong, finishing 1-2-4-5 on 1 meter and 1-2-3-5 on 3 meter. Zac Ranta won both events and qualified for the NCAA Zone Qualifying meet, and Freshman Michael Stanton and Sophomore Taylor Nickel both had a 2nd place, with each scoring over 290 in their highest finish. It looks to be a strong season on the boards this year. We next raced at our Annual Intra Squad Meet on Sat October 31. Junior Douwe Yntema, Sophomore Niall Janney and Freshmen Owen Wurzbacher had outstanding performances. The meet came down to the last relay with the Crimson team defeating the Black team by less than seven points. As of November 1, eight of our top recruits have committed to attend Harvard in the fall of 2010. We have an outstanding class of freestylers. Next fall we will have a minimum of seven swimmers who swim the 200 Free in 1:40 or below. We kick off our Dual Meet season with Texas A&M on Friday November 13 followed by Cornell/Dartmouth on November 14. The Texas A&M meet will begin at 11am. We’d love to have you attend. If you are unable, please check gocrimson.com for results and updates. On a final note, one of our goals is to preserve, organize and expand the written history of Harvard Men’s Swimming and Diving. There are so many great stories and facts about our program that should be accessible to all. Many items are currently stored at Blodgett and we could use your help review that material, and to add to it and help determine a method for display. If you are interested, please contact Coach Tyrrell . Regards, Tim -- Timothy D. Murphy Head Coach of Men's Swimming Harvard University 65 North Harvard St. Boston, MA 02163 office 617-495-2268 fax 617-507-0772