Men's swimming dominates at DeNunzio

While snow fell peacefully down onto the Princeton campus this weekend, DeNunzio Pool was anything but calm. In that pool, teams from all across the East Coast came to challenge the men's swimming and diving team this weekend.

Though the competition looked to make waves at Princeton's home pool, the visitors were at the mercy of the tidal wave that the Tigers let loose this weekend.

Expectations were high for the team, which stands at 70-0 racing in DeNunzio Pool, having never lost a race in the 12-year history of the building.

"We were pretty excited going into this meet because we have been training so hard throughout the fall," freshman David Ashley said. "We were aware of the big shoes to fill from lasts year's team, but once we got to the races, it was all about going our hardest to represent our school."

And big shoes they did fill. The Tigers defended the 2002 crown valiantly by sweeping the competition, winning the annual Invitational by 575 total points.

Day one

Princeton started off the weekend with a win in the 200-yard freestyle relay. In the next men's event, the 500-yard freestyle, senior Juan Valdivieso took first by more than two seconds, with junior Hustin Chiles and Ashley rounding off third and fourth place.

In the 400-yard medley relay, the Tigers took the top two spots with a strong first-place performance by Valdivieso, Chiles, junior Evan Delaney and freshman Mike Zee. Princeton finished day one with three first-place finishes out of five total events.

"We were all pretty happy about the Friday's races," Ashley said. "Though there were only a few events, the strong performances really motivated us to do the same in the next two days."

Day two

In the finals of day two, held Saturday evening, Princeton claimed four wins and at least a top three finish in each of the seven events.

In the 200-yard medley relay, Princeton represented with second and third places, as the second-place finishers, composed of Delaney, Reinhardt, Zee and sophomore John Stover, fell to first-place Rutgers by a mere hundredth of a second. In the 100-yard butterfly, the Tigers cleaned up with Valdivieso in first, Zee in second and Stover in third place.

Princeton dominated the following three events and finished off the day with a victory streak. Delaney won the 100-yard breaststroke, coming out on top in the event by less than a second.

Valdivieso, Chiles, Zee, and senior Mike Salerno brought home another first place in the 800-yard free relay, a fine display of the Tigers' extensive freestyle depth. Newcomer Zee took first place in the 100-yard backstroke, setting a new pool record in the event, to cap off a fine second day at the the Invitational.

Day three

In the final day of events, Princeton sent 33 swimmers into the finals Sunday night, including four relay teams.

The day produced some very exciting races, including the 200-yard butterfly in which Valdivieso took first, freshman Meir Hasbani finished second and sophomore Brian Shue placed third. It was a close race until the finish, but the end result was all Princeton.

In the final event of the Invitational — the men's 400-yard freestyle relay — a nail-biting battle between Princeton and Rutgers brought the crowd to its feet. With both teams trading leads throughout the race's entirety, the duel ended with a photo-finish victory for the Tigers.

Once again the Tigers made clear their ability to dominate from start to finish and once again DeNunzio Pool saw competitive racing heightened by a sense of orange and black pride.

"Pretty much as a whole the entire team was pretty excited about everything," Delaney said. "Everybody perfomed better than expected. The ones that stood out in my mind were Ashley's mile and Valdivieso's 200-[yard] fly."