For eight of the past 10 seasons, Harvard has claimed victory at the Eastern Intercollegiate Swimming League (EISL) championship meet. The Princeton men's swimming team has placed a bittersweet second in many of those meets — a finish it would rather not repeat this season.
But beating the Crimson won't be easy.
"Harvard will still be our biggest conference challenge," assistant coach Jamie Holder said. "They are returning many point scorers from last year and are sure to have some fast freshmen."
The Tigers do have the talent to be contenders, though. Even with the graduation of Justin Chiles '05, who captured a league title and a number of runner-up and third-place finishes at last year's EISL championship, Princeton returns a myriad of its top swimmers to the pool.
Five of the returning swimmers have recorded top-10 times in the Tigers' history, including senior Will Reinhardt and junior Meir Hasbani, both of whom will be defending their Ivy titles at this year's EISL.
Head coach Rob Orr's squad also returns a trio of senior captains to provide leadership: Alan Fishman, Sami Mardam-Bey and Brian Shue.
Princeton also has 12 new freshmen swimmers added to the ranks this year, each with his own event specialty. Daily practices and weekend bonding have helped form strong team camaraderie, essential to the intense team spirit the Tigers have experienced in the past years.
Fortunately for Princeton, the freshmen are working hard to contribute to the team. Several have already stood out in the pool: Robert Griest in distance freestyle, Doug Lennox in butterfly and John Lamonaca in breaststroke.
Not only are the swimmers returning strong, but the divers are also showing great potential with junior Kent De Mond, sophomore Stuart Malcolm and three new freshmen.
Intense training
Though practices only officially began on Oct.1, with 10 practices and over 20 hours of training each week on top of their academic studies, these diligent athletes have been successfully achieving one goal after another.
"We aren't doing anything different than we have done in the past to prepare for them [Harvard]," Holder said. "Hopefully with this continued hard work and some luck we will come out on top."
Though the team's annual Fall Break training trip to Florida was cancelled due to Hurricane Wilma, the swimmers remained on the almost-empty campus, working hard to prepare for the upcoming season with an Ivy League dual meet just around the corner. According to Fishman, staying on campus actually allowed Princeton to commit more time to training.
Though Harvard is nearly always on the team's mind, the Penn and Cornell dual meet is the first challenge of the year.
The team has already had a few mock meets to prepare for this first competition. The Black and Orange Intrasquad Meet gave the swimmers the chance to practice racing under competitive conditions.
The Tigers kick off their season Friday and Saturday at DeNunzio Pool with The Big Al Invitational, hosted in honor of the late Alan Ebersole '07. For Princeton it will be the first step in a season of high expectations.
"There's no question that [we have] lofty goals," Fishman said, "but the talent and strength of our team this year certainly makes them attainable."
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