No. 22 Men's Swimming and
Diving Sets Three Blodgett Records, Leads After Day One of EISL
Championship
Courtesy: Harvard Athletic Communications
Release: 03/06/2008
Courtesy: DSPics.com
Quinn helped No. 22
Harvard set a new pool, meet and EISL record in the 400 medley relay.
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - Crimson
swimmers set three
pool records on day one of the 2008 EISL Championship held at Blodgett
Pool, helping No. 22 Harvard to a first-place showing.
The 400 medley relay quartet
of freshman Jordan
Diekema, senior Geoff
Rathgeber, junior Bill
Jones and senior Pat
Quinn
closed out the racing with a pool, meet and EISL record with a
collective mark of 3:13.34. The Crimson broke the Blodgett mark that
was set back in 1981.
With the
victory in the final event of the day, Harvard accumulated a total 485
points, 83 more than second-place Princeton (402). Navy is in third
with 280 points, while Yale is in fourth place with 260. Harvard earned
both 64-point events Thursday, the 400 medley relay and the 200
freestyle relay, to take a comfortable lead.
Rathgeber
was a part of two other Crimson record-breaking performances as he
established a new pool standard in the 200 IM, finishing with an NCAA
"A" time of 1:45.62. With that mark, Rathgeber is an automatic
qualifier for the NCAA Championships March 27 in Federal Way, Wash. The
previous Blodgett mark of 1:46.25 was set in 1980 by UCLA's William
Barrett. Rathgeber already owns the meet and EISL
record for the 200 IM (1:44.67), which he posted last season.
Freshman Justin
Davidson and senior Michael
Bowen
joined Rathgeber in the top 10 of the 200 IM. Davidson (1:50.99) swam
eighth, and Bowen (1:50.84) was the 10th swimmer to finish in the
event.
Rathgeber was also a member
of the
200 freestyle relay that placed first, setting another Blodgett Pool
record in the process. With Yale leading after the first leg, the
Crimson caught up and tied the event. In the final left, Quinn, a
senior sprinter, swam past his Bulldog counterpart, and touched the
wall first for the victory. Quinn, Rathgeber, junior
David
Guernsey and freshman Will
Heyburn swam a collective time of 1:19.31.
This
was the second time that Harvard broke the pool record in the 200 free
relay Thursday, as these same Crimson swimmers broke the mark set in
2000 during the preliminaries (1:19.96.)
Harvard won its fourth race
when senior Sam
Wollner and junior Eric
Lynch
finished 1-2 in the 500 freestyle. Wollner swam the course in 4:22.13,
while Lynch was right behind in 4:22.17. With those marks, both
swimmers posted NCAA "B" qualifying times. Sophomores Mason
Brunnick and Alex
Meyer
placed 4-5 in the 500 freestyle with times of 4:24.81 and 4:26.09,
respectively, which are both NCAA "B" cuts. Harvard freshman Blake
Lewkowitz was 10th (4:28.77), while classmate Douwe
Yntema finished 12th (4:29.25).
In the 1-mtr dive, senior Lucas
Sanders posted the fourth best score on the board with 282.75.
Crimson
swimmers went 4-5 in the 50 freestyle as Quinn and Guernsey were the
quickest Harvard swimmers in the event. Quinn touched the wall in
20.23, and Guernsey had a time of 20.38. Heyburn (20.80) and Bill
Jones (20.94) were 11th and 12th, respectively.
The Crimson entered the meet
as the ECAC and EISL
regular-season champion after posting a 9-0 record (8-0 EISL, 7-0 Ivy
League) during the year's dual meets. Harvard men's swimming and diving has won 21
EISL titles in its stellar history.
The EISL Championships
continue Friday with the preliminaries at 11 a.m. and the finals at 6
p.m.