As the first step in defending last year’s Ivy League championships, the men’s and women’s swimming and diving teams had a successful opening weekend for their league seasons. Both the men and women took first place against Cornell and Penn when they traveled to Ithaca, N.Y., this weekend.
The men’s side was led by senior tri-captain Colin Hanna, who had three first-place finishes, as well as juniors Colin Cordes and Jonathan Christensen.
“We took control at the very beginning,” Christensen said. “We used each race as motivation for the next and kept up the enthusiasm throughout the meet.”
Christensen had four first-place finishes, the first of which was a team effort in the 200-yard medley relay. Christensen, with sophomore Kaspar Raigla, senior Geoffrey Faux and junior Mike Monovoukas, took first place with a time of 1 minute, 32.74 seconds, a full second ahead of Cornell’s second-place team. Raigla went on to take second in the 100-yard backstroke, only 0.28 seconds behind Cornell’s Jake Sangren. Raigla is also an advertising manager for The Daily Princetonian.
Hanna and freshman Paul Nolle had a one-two finish in the 1,000-yard freestyle race, with Hanna coming in at 9:28.27 and Nolle finishing six seconds later.
Cordes and junior Travis McNamara created another one-two finish for the Tigers in the 200-yard freestyle with times of 1:41.15 and 1:42.05, respectively. Cordes earned another freestyle title in the 100-yard race, coming in with a time of 46.44 seconds.
Christensen dominated the breaststroke races, capturing his second first-place finish in the 100-yard breaststroke with a time of 56.12 seconds. His next top finish was the 200-yard breaststroke, in which he crushed the second place Cornell finisher by four seconds.
Hanna’s second individual win came in the 200-yard backstroke, and freshman Adam Lebovitz came in right after him, a little more than one second later.
McNamara saw his first top finish in the 500-yard freestyle race, which he won in 4:37.71. The second-place swimmer, from Cornell, was more than four seconds behind.
The Tigers saw their strongest performance in the 100-yard butterfly, in which they took the top three spots, all within one second of each other. Junior Charlie Wang saw his first individual win of the season with a time of 51.08 seconds, with Monovoukas right behind him at 51.23 seconds and Raigla rounding out the top three at 51.39 seconds.
The men finished the day with another one-two finish in the 400-yard freestyle relay. Cordes, Tung, Christensen and freshman Ian Rea took first place at 3:06.28, and Raigla, McNamara, Lullo and sophomore Brian Barrett took second place, five seconds later. Of the men’s 16 events, 13 of the top spots went to Tiger swimmers.
As he did in the meet two weekends ago against Virginia and Virginia Tech, sophomore Stevie Vines had the best performance again for the Tigers in both the one-meter and three-meter dives. Vines took first place overall in the one-meter with 304.65 points, and second overall in the three-meter with 310.75 points.
With this win against Cornell and Penn, the women’s team has now won 33 straight dual meets. The team was led by senior captain Megan Waters, and had strong performances from freshmen Lisa Boyce, Karen Wang and Maureen McCotter.
To open for the Tigers, Wang, Boyce, Waters and junior Kerry Gruendel teamed up to grab the first-place spot in the 200-yard medley relay and set a record for the Teague Hall pool. McCotter continued the strong opening for Princeton with her first collegiate win in the 1,000-yard freestyle in 10:16.47.
Wang followed with another first-place finish in the 100-yard backstroke, and sophomore Carter Stephens had her first individual win of the meet in the 200-yard butterfly.
Waters and Boyce had one-two finishes in back-to-back races. First, the pair took the top spots in the 50-yard freestyle, and right afterward in the 100-yard freestyle, with Waters winning both races.
The Tigers took the top three spots again in the 200-yard backstroke. Wang earned another first place title at 2:03.19, with junior Meredith Monroe behind her at 2:03.75. Ong finished the top three in 2:06.68.
Junior Christina Kirkwood, senior Carolyn Littlefield and sophomore Katelyn Perry took the top three spots of the three-meter dive for the Tigers, and freshman Emily Kaplan came in second place in the one-meter to be the top finisher for Princeton.
After a weekend of rest for Thanksgiving, the Tigers will be ready to host the Big A1 Meet at DeNunzio Pool the first weekend of December.
“We are expecting to have fast times from everyone, so it will be an exciting meet to watch,” Christensen said. “It will be nice to swim in our home pool, especially after a long break.
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