Hasbani and DeMond are All-Americans

For most of the men's and women's swimming and diving teams, the 2006 season ended before spring break, just in time to enjoy the annual week of relaxation. For a small group, however, the season didn't stop after the Ivy League Championships. Four athletes earned an invitation to compete at the NCAA Championships in Georgia last week, and represented Princeton at the national competition.

To earn a chance to compete at this prestigious event, swimmers had to swim faster than the qualifying time standards designated by the NCAA. Those competing above the water first competed at the Zone Championship meet, held annually two weeks before the NCAA Championship. By winning either the one-meter, three-meter or platform diving events, divers qualified to compete at the NCAA meet.

For the women, two young athletes qualified — sophomore Ellen Gray and freshman Peggy Kearns. Gray earned her spot by making the NCAA 'B' cut in the 1650-meter freestyle while Kearns won the platform diving event at the Zone meet. It was not a surprise that these young women qualified for the meet, since both played an integral part in Princeton's Ivy League Championships title. Though neither participant was able to score, both performed well at their first national championship meet.

Gray — who brought home two titles from the Ivy League Championships — was ranked 30th in the nation in the 1650m going into the meet. She improved her position and finished 26th at the NCAA Championships, achieving her goal of swimming at top form. Gray finished in 16 minutes, 35 seconds, just three seconds slower than her personal record attained at Ivies.

"My goals for the meet were to just soak in the experience of being at such a high caliber meet with such great swimmers," Gray said. "I wanted to go in there and try my best and represent Princeton to the best of my ability. It was hard to swim without the team there behind me. I basically just wanted to have fun, enjoy the experience and swim my best."

Like Gray, Kearns also had a solid performance. As one of the few freshmen competing at the championships, Kearns defeated many veterans, placing 20th overall in the platform diving event. Though she failed to reach the final and finished outside of the top-16, Kearns easily solidified her position as one of the top Ivy League divers.

While the women were relatively young, the men were represented by upperclassmen and placed 21st as a team — an impressive feat for just two athletes. Juniors Meir Hasbani and Kent DeMond both competed in multiple events and gained the distinction of being Princeton's first male swimmers or divers to earn All-American honors in 16 years.

Hasbani proved to be the strongest Tiger swimmer in the regular season, qualifying for three events: the 200 individual medley, 400 IM, and 200 butterfly. Focusing mainly on his strongest event, the 200 fly, Hasbani was able to cut a second off his time from the conference meet, swimming a personal record 1:45.37 to earn a chance to compete in the finals.

Though swimming half a second slower in the final, Hasbani still took 7th place in the event, earning 12 points for Princeton and garnering himself All-America status. Even though the 200 fly was his main focus, he still performed well in the 200 IM and 400 IM, finishing 36th and 20th respectively.

Motivated by Hasbani's performance, DeMond performed equally well in both the three-meter and the platform. Focusing on his specialty, the platform, DeMond intended to use the three-meter as a warm up. To his surprise, however, he completed a near perfect performance, scoring points for Princeton with a 14th place finish.

Despite having a stunning performance on the three-meter, DeMond was a little bit shaky at the start of the platform competition. Missing his first two dives, he was sitting in 16th place after two rounds, and his chances to make the finals looked grim. DeMond ended up finishing strong, however, climbing to fifth place by the end of the sixth round, and earning a spot in the finals. As a first-time national finalist, DeMond skillfully, and nervously, performed the most difficult dive in the meet, and scored a whopping 322.10 points in the finals, to claim sixth place.

Both DeMond and Hasbani surpassed their goals, scoring a combined 28 points for Princeton, and finished the season with their best performances of the year.

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"The highlight of the meet for me was that the two of us qualified for our first national level final competition on the last day in our best events," DeMond said. "It made a great end to an awesome season."

For both the men and women, Princeton completed the 2006 season on top — and with such a young team, perhaps next year will be Princeton's year to shine at the national championships.