Men's Swimming & Diving: Princeton ends year unbeaten

The Tigers (7-0 Ivy League) controlled the meet, showing a wealth of depth and talent as they prepare for their conference championship in two weeks.

Senior Yarden Fraiman clinched the first event of the evening, the three-meter dive, with an impressive 301.95-point performance, and junior Daniel Dickerson placed second with 289.73 points. Fraiman has been excellent all year, but his contributions have been more important since the recent injury of junior Mike Papageorge, a top scorer for the Tigers in the past.

Princeton continued its dominance on the boards with a one-three finish in the one-meter competition, this time with Dickerson leading the way for the Orange and Black.

The distance group put on an impressive performance in both the 500- and 1,000-yard freestyle, taking first in the 500 and one through three in the 1,000 event. Sophomores Patrick Biggs and Colin Hanna led the way in the 1000, finishing one-two, and senior Robert Griest finished third. The Tigers dominated the 1,000, with Griest finishing more than six seconds ahead of the closest Columbia swimmer. Senior Dan Eckel, who has also had a dominant season, touched first in the 500-yard freestyle, finishing five seconds ahead of the second-place finisher.

Many Tigers swam off-events this meet, focusing on the more technical aspects of racing to get ready for conference.

“In terms of swimming off-events, it’s just nice to be able to get out of our routine events and break up the monotony,” Griest said. “People were trying to focus on certain aspects of a race — like negative splitting [and turns] — in preparation for conference.”

Princeton went two-three in the 200-yard medley relay, though the fastest Tiger team was disqualified due to an early start in the last leg of the race. Princeton then went one-two in the 200-yard freestyle, with junior Jonathan Hartmann finishing first with a time of one minute, 40.17 seconds, and freshman teammate Travis McNamara, finishing second with a time of 1:42.31.

One of the strongest events for the Tigers was the backstroke, in which they took the top three spots in both the 100- and 200-yard events. Freshman Colin Cordes led the way, finishing with a time of 52.02 seconds to win the 100, while freshman Robert Coe and senior Danny O’Connor finished second and third, respectively. Cordes also finished first in the 200, followed again by Coe in second. Hanna finished third.

Eckel won his second individual event of the night with a 1:48.94 in the 200-yard butterfly, catching and overtaking senior tri-captain Doug Lennox after the first 100 yards. Lennox closed the gap in the last 50 yards and finished second. Lennox and Eckel have the seventh- and 10th-fastest national times this year and should be top contenders in the conference meet and at the NCAA Tournament later this year.

As the Tigers close their perfect season, they still have numerous goals on the horizon.

“There are no moral victories when it’s us and Harvard racing, so anything short of a conference championship is a disappointment,” Griest said. “If we can come out on top of the Ivy League and send enough people to NCAAs to finish in the top 20, this will be one of Princeton swimming’s most successful years in a long time.”

The Tigers will now begin the taper process as they prepare for their conference meet, hosted this year at DeNunzio Pool. Competition will begin March 5 and will continue through March 7.