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Host men's swimming looks to shock the world

After a sound defeat at the hands of Harvard at this year's Harvard-Yale-Princeton meet, the Princeton men's swim team knows what most people expect this weekend at the Eastern Championships at DeNunzio Pool — the Crimson will be crowned champ for the fifth consecutive year while the Tigers will once again be relegated to runner-up status.

But head coach Rob Orr and his swimmers have a different perspective. For them, the meet is there for the taking. They just have to get up and swim.

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Fast.

"If we swim extremely well and Harvard falters a bit, there is nothing between us and the title," Orr said.

The team has been steadily improving since the H-Y-P meet. Continued taper and rest resulted in impressive performances against Navy, putting the men's squad in the right frame of mind for the final weeks.

"The balance of the squad has been showing some fairly fast swims in practice and we hope it will translate into some lifetime best performances this weekend," Orr said.

Raw is war

This is exactly what the Tigers need if they hope to wrestle the title from Harvard. Princeton cannot just exploit its advantages to balance out Harvard's. The Tigers must make their presence felt in the freestyle distance events — Harvard's main strength. At H-Y-Ps, the Crimson dominated these events, especially the 1650-yard freestyle in which Harvard swimmers finished with the top five fastest times. Junior Kevin Volz and freshman Paul Cremer will be the Tigers' main weapons in the distance events, while in the 500 free Princeton will get added help from senior Matt Janson.

"Our guys can do really well in the 500 and the rest of the distance events but there's going to be a lot of good swimmers in that event [from every team]," senior captain Dan Russell said. "It's going to be a fast event all around."

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Relays — scored double in team competition — will also play an important factor in the Tiger-Crimson matchup. In four of the five relays, Harvard currently holds the best times in the league but all of Princeton's relay times are very much within striking distance.

Final piece

The final element to the Tigers' formula is the continued success of its top performers. Sophomore Chris Cunningham will hope to capitalize on his top seeding in the 200 free and build upon his fourth seed in the 200 back. In that event, he will be complemented by junior Andrew Chadeayne, the team's premier backstroke, who has fully recovered from mononucleosis earlier in the year.

Overall, the Tigers know that this will not be an easy weekend, by any means. One intangible does favor Princeton — the Tigers will have 'home-pool' advantage for the first time in four years.

'I love this pool and the other guys love it, too," Russell said. "I don't think anyone of us has had a bad meet [at DeNunizo]."

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"We swim fast there and that's what must be done... or else we lose."

For the men's team this weekend, it's just that simple.