Swimming & Diving: Princeton victorious in opening Ivy meet

The men’s and women’s swimming and diving teams had an eerily similar weekend.

Both opened the Ivy League season at DeNunzio Pool against Penn and Cornell. Both started the meet on a win in the 200-yard medley relay. And, most importantly, both ended the meet victorious, with almost across-the-board sweeps.

Despite coming off an exhausting practice schedule and a training trip to Florida, the Tigers defeated their Ivy opponents with points to spare.

The men’s team earned an impressive 191-104 win against Cornell and defeated Penn, 193-102, to preserve its undefeated streak at DeNunzio, which now stands at 95-0.

Sophomore Jon Christensen won both the 100- and 200-yard breaststroke, while sophomore and current Ivy League 500 freestyle champion Travis McNamara won the 500- and 1,000-yard free.

In a world where races are won and lost by just tenths or hundredths of a second, not swimming all-out is not an option. There were a few close, nerve-wracking endings: The 200 medley team won by 0.2 seconds, while senior tri-captain Christopher Quemena pulled ahead in the 200 free by just 0.03 seconds.

“Hopefully, this will set the tone for the rest of the year, and we can continue to perform well. The first dual meet of the year, you never really know exactly what kind of shape the team is in, so it’s nice to see that everyone is in good form leading up into our other dual meets,” Quemena said.

The Tigers also welcomed sophomore Olympian Bryan Tay’s first individual win for Princeton. Tay won the 200 fly, edging out Big Red junior Dean Holcomb.

The women’s team did equally well, defeating Cornell, 167-122, and Penn, 160.5-128.5. The pair of wins extended the Tigers’ winning streak to 26.

“This was a great opening Ivy meet competition for us,” head coach Susan Teeter said. “The team had great spirit throughout the meet.”

Even this early in the season, personal records are being set. This weekend, Teeter said, junior Ming Ong and freshman Sarah Furgatch had lifetime best swims in the 200 free and 200 IM, respectively.

“Lifetime best swims are very unusual at this time of year,” Teeter noted.

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“We had wonderful performances by Aislinn Smalling ’12 and Lauren Benjamin ’11 in the 1,000 free,” Teeter said.

Additionally, senior tri-captain Alicia Aemisegger won the 100 fly, was part of the victorious 200 medley team and won the 200 IM by more than six seconds.

“We were determined to train as hard as possible this past week, train Saturday morning, and then see what we could accomplish in a competition later in the day,” Teeter said.

Freshman performances this weekend also put to rest concerns about the large graduating class last year, which included seven men on the Ivy League Championship team.

Many of the freshmen on both Princeton teams proved themselves this weekend by starting out with strong wins. Freshman Kaspar Raigla was part of Princeton’s winning 200 medley team and edged out the Big Red to win the 100 backstroke by more than a second.

“The new freshmen have done an awesome job this year. They were certainly a huge part of our win against Penn [and] Cornell and can definitely help us at our conference meet,” Quemena said. “However, our team is very deep this year, and making the roster for the Ivy League champs is going to be competitive.”

According to Quemena, though the Tigers have the strongest sprint and mid-freestyle team in the Ivy League, Harvard is always a threat.

“When it comes down to it, the HYP meet and Ivy League conference meet are always going to be close between Harvard and Princeton,” Quemena said. “It’s literally been us and Harvard going back and forth with championships for 17 years.”

Both diving teams succeeded this past weekend as well. Sophomore Christina Kirkwood and freshman Bryna Tsai won the one-meter and three-meter diving competitions, respectively.

Senior and Ivy League champion Daniel Dickerson won his three-meter diving event, with the closest competitor being teammate freshman Stevie Vines.

“The divers had a great meet as well and were very happy with their performance,” Teeter said.

There’s more to look forward to as the teams travel to the Bucknell Invitational from Dec. 4 through 6.