There's nothing like the emotional high of defeating a close rival. Mimicking the women's win over Harvard for the Ivy League title one week prior, the men's swimming and diving team continued its league dominance by capturing its second consecutive Eastern Intercollegiate Swimming League (EISL) title over Harvard, 1405 to 1220.5, a feat that hadn't been repeated since the 1990-1992 seasons.
Entering the meet, the Tigers understood the challenge they faced. As the defending champion, Princeton faced star swimmers from Harvard, Yale, Cornell and others this weekend, all of whom were eager to take Princeton's title. Moreover, each team proudly brought their strongest collection of swimmers to create one of the fastest EISL Championships in the past several years. Despite the pressure from opponents, the Tigers maintained their confidence and determination to execute a myriad of best swims.
"This was easily the deepest and fastest Easterns that I've been to. Four years ago it was unthinkable for any team other than Princeton or Harvard to win a relay," senior Meir Hasbani said. "This year Cornell won four, and Columbia challenged for the top spot in several relays as well."
Even more pressure to win came from the team's need to uphold its winning streak at home, as well as the fast competition from the recent Harvard-Yale-Princeton tri-meet. The Tigers underwent a hard mental and physical battle to prepare for the most important meet of the season.
"Mentally and physically, we had to ... approach this as having a chip on our shoulders because the [HYP] tri-meet was such an emotional high, maintaining our home unbeaten streak (now at 93-0) and take the momentum into this meet, which is a different type of meet," sophomore Doug Lennox said in an email. "This meet, which plays more to our advantage because of our depth, was so hard to prepare for because we knew Harvard was going to be coming after us. [T]hey have star-power...and, of course, they wanted to redeem their dual meet loss at Easterns [last year]."
Fortunately, Princeton successfully dominated starting from early on in the meet. Though the Tigers did not win a significant number of individual titles, Princeton once again proved that depth is the key to winning the championship.
"What's important in a championship meet is swimming fast in the prelims, and getting guys into the finals," Hasbani said in an email. "We fought hard for three straight mornings, getting multiple swimmers into the top 8 in virtually every event. That was the difference for us this weekend: that our best swims came in the morning. You can't win a championship without getting guys into the finals."
Princeton's strength was quickly apparent, and was best represented Thursday during the 200 IM, where five Tigers placed into the top eight, with sophomore Will Schaffer, Hasbani, senior Tim Ruse, freshmen Christopher Quemena and freshman Jon Hartmann placing second, third, fourth, seventh and eighth, respectively. Freshman diving star Mike Papageorge continued his strong season by placing second in the 1-meter, with junior Stuart Malcolm also placing fifth.
The Tigers continued into Friday with sophomore Robert Griest and senior Dave Ashley showing strong swims in the first individual event of the day, the 1000 free, by placing second and third, respectively. But it was the 400 IM that helped Princeton earn a plethora of points. Hasbani led the pack of Tigers to claim five places in the top eight, with Hasbani placing second and earning an NCAA-B cut. Princeton also captured its first and only individual win Saturday when Lennox won the 100 fly by less than a second.
The final session helped Princeton clinch the title, with Griest and Ashley placing third and fourth in the 1650 free. Saturday's strength came from one of the last individual events, an annual Tiger strength. Hasbani led sophomore Dan Eckel, Lennox and Ruse to dominate, the 200 fly, taking second, third, sixth and eighth-places. Diving wrapped up the meet with Papageorge taking second and Malcolm taking third in the 3-meter.
"We really came together as a team this weekend. Just about everyone swam lifetime bests, and the guys on the team that weren't competing were in the stands for every session cheering us on," Hasbani said in an email. "They even made us a pump-up-video, which we watched as a team on Wednesday night before the competition started."
This strong team bond and spirit, along with its incredible depth, helped the Tigers win back-to-back EISL Championships. There are several things to celebrate about the win this weekend. First, back-to-back wins have not been seen by Princeton since 1991. Second, the team successfully extended its winning streak at home to 93-0.
But the season isn't over for a handful of swimmers. Many are anxiously awaiting the final decisions determining who will be invited to compete at NCAAs. As only the top-20-22 swimmers are taken for each event, the chances to compete are slim. Since many of the Tigers have strong times and performances, such as Hasbani, Lennox, Griest and Schaffer, there's a good chance that at least a few Tigers will be competing at the NCAAs.
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