Men's swimming finishes distant first at Princeton Invitational

Men's swimming invited some friends over for a dip in DeNunzio Pool last weekend. Over three days of competition, the Tigers made sure everyone knew whose house it was. The Tigers won the first two events of this year's Princeton Invitational and never looked back. By late Friday, the meet was a rout. After Sunday, it was an annihilation.

Princeton finished with a score of 1,321.5 points, blowing the seven visiting teams out of the water. The numbers make it clear that the meet was a display of domination:

Princeton's score was more than double that of Rutgers, which finished as runner-up with 603.5.

The Tigers beat the combined score of the second and third-place finishers by nearly 200 points.

If the bottom five schools — American, Villanova, Columbia, Rider, and Boston College — had formed one team, they would have only beaten the Tigers by 20 points.

Let's just say no recount was needed.

The successful weekend was the result of a strong showing from the entire team. Princeton managed to take the gold in half of the 18 events. Only twice did the Tigers not have a top-three finisher.

"Everyone swam as fast, if not faster, then they've ever been at this point in the season," senior co-captain Carl Hessler said.

Hessler was one of two Tigers to rack up multiple victories over the weekend. Out of seven events, Hessler triumphed in five, finishing second in the other two. The five wins included two individual events — the 200 butterfly and 500 freestyle — as well as three relays.

Senior Jesse Gage also paced the Tigers. He touched first in both the 100 fly and free, and took second in the 50 free. In addition, he swam on four winning relay teams, bringing his first place total to six.

Although Hessler and Gage were the only individual winners for the Tigers, they were far from the only stars.

"Guys rose to the occasion, swam well, and solidified their positions on the team for the dual meets," head coach Rob Orr said.

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Ten different swimmers were members of first place relay teams. Sprint-freestylers junior Mike Salerno and sophomore Justin Chiles were on three victorious teams each. Senior breastroker Garth Fealey chipped in for two medley winning relay teams.

Chiles was especially impressive on the weekend. He also swam strongly in individual events, taking third in both the 100 and 500 and fourth in the 200 free.

"Justin [Chiles] has impressed everyone on the team by consistently coming up with fast swims," Hessler said.

Despite the magnitude of victory, the Tigers are not without weakness. The results in the individual medley and the long-distance (1650) free events left something to be desired.

"Ideally we'd like to be well balanced across the board," Orr said. "But we were hit hard by graduations in a few areas."

The Tigers placed well in the diving events. Sophomore Kent DeMond, junior Mike Sullivan, and sophomore Nick Lee swept the one-meter event and finished 2-3-4 in the three-meter.

With the victory, Princeton defended last year's championship. The Tigers stayed undefeated on the season and have now dispatched 10 teams over three meets.

Additionally, the Princeton men's and women's teams combined to take the overall title for the third straight year. The combined score of 2,448.5 bested second place Rutgers by about 1100 points.

Princeton returns to action this Wednesday against Army, at DeNunzio.

"Our guys will just be striving to continue improving on the quality of their performances before our break," Orr said.

The swimmers will then have winter break off before resuming training and refocusing for the second half of the season. With three months until Eastern Championships, there is still plenty of hard work to be done. But thus far, all signs have been positive.

"Hopefully [the results so far] indicate that we are on track to accomplish our goals [for the season]," Hessler said.