Floaters pull out close win in NYC

Down 14 points with only four events to go against the Lions, the men's swimming and diving team knew one thing: It didn't want to notch a third consecutive loss.

The men's swimming and diving team struggled and then sprinted to the finish, barely edging out Columbia, 153-147. After two close losses to Cornell and Navy, Princeton had traveled to New York City hoping to turn around its league record. Though the Tigers defeated the Lions at the Big Al Invite earlier this year, the men expected competition, and the weekend meet became one of the tightest and most exciting of the season.

"Last year Columbia surprised Harvard and beat them at their [home] pool, and we knew that they had the potential to do the same to us," senior Meir Hasbani said. "The meet could really have gone either way, and we knew that going in."

With Columbia being the first league meet of the new year, and only the second meet since the completion of "hell week," the Princeton athletes mentally and physically prepared for the match, the first of a string of four league meets to follow.

"We knew they would come out swimming fast," senior Tim Ruse said. "But we showed up at Columbia ready to race, and we did what we needed to do to win."

The week of intense individual training and improvement proved to be effective this weekend. The Tigers had myriad personal achievements this Saturday, helping Princeton take the lead early.

Though Columbia's "A" Relay captured the 200-yard medley relay, Princeton rallied and captured the first three individual titles. Sophomore Robert Griest took the first individual title in the 1,000-yd freestyle by nearly 17 seconds. Fellow sophomore Will Schaffer mimicked Griest's performance in the following 200-yd freestyle; however, the event was a race to the finish with Schaffer defeating sophomore Kevin Wakefield of Columbia by only .01 seconds. The two athletes were head-to-head throughout the race, with Schaffer's splits only tenths of a second faster than Wakefield's. Senior Mike Zee won the 100-yd back in 51.08 seconds.

But the Lions matched the Tigers' speed and seemed unstoppable, taking four consecutive events, plus the one-meter diving event. Columbia stole the spotlight during the 100-yd breaststroke, dominating the event by taking the first three finishes. Princeton's strongest and most successful struggle occurred in the 200-yd butterfly. Sophomore Dan Eckel and Hasbani fought freshman Hyun Lee of Columbia. Though Eckel and Hasbani were well behind Lee at the 100-split, the two finished second and third respectively after Lee by under a second.

Despite Columbia's string of wins, Princeton successfully regained the lead, and eventually won the meet. Ruse and Zee restarted the Tigers' winning ways in the 200-yd back, claiming first and second respectively. Griest returned to dominate the distance events, winning the 500-yd freestyle. But the last individual event clenched the win for the Tigers. Ruse, Schaffer and Hasbani finished with a 1-2-3 win in the 200-yd individual medley.

"This meet was great practice for [Harvard-Yale-Princeton] and Easterns; we know what we're up against, and now we know what we're capable of at the end of a swim meet when we're tired and run down," Hasbani said. "We didn't give up; we kept on fighting and it feels good to finally win an away meet. It was the most fun meet we've had all year ... [it] was a huge morale booster for us."

With morale high and more training to be done, the Tigers have now set their sights on the upcoming Harvard-Yale-Princeton tri-meet. In the midst of finals and the ending of the semester, the Tigers will continue their training in the hopes of defeating their two primary league rivals.

"Right now we're concentrating on HYPs, but there's no better to get ready for conference than by getting some fast racing experience," Ruse said. "Over the next three weeks, we'll be working on a lot of swimming fundamentals: fast, effective starts and turns, precise strokes and most importantly, getting a lot of practice racing right to the wall."