Swimming & Diving: DeNunzio reign continues

In the first home meet of the season, both the men’s and women’s swimming and diving teams had record-breaking performances to come in first place in the three-day Big Al Open this weekend. The men and women beat Brown, University of Florida and Rider University. Washington State sent only its women’s team, and Columbia had its men’s team and women’s diving teams competing.

The men’s team won with 1256 points, beating second-place Florida by more than 300 points. Columbia took third place with 644 points, and Brown came in fourth with 529.5 points. Rider took fifth place with 250 points. The Tigers’ competition against Brown was also a dual meet, and Princeton crushed the Bears by a score of 226-74. The win continued the men’s 20-year undefeated dual-meet streak at their home pool. They saw strong performances from freshman Paul Nolle and juniors Colin Cordes and Jon Christensen.

“I think the team performed very well this weekend,” Cordes said. “We really showcased the depth and talent that hopefully will lead us to another Ivy championship in a few months.”

On the first day, the men won four out of five events, beginning with the 4x200-yard freestyle relay that senior Geoff Faux, junior Matt LaMonaca, Cordes and sophomore Andres Tung won by more than a second.

Princeton also had two one-two-three finishes on Friday. In the 500-yard freestyle race, junior Travis McNamara took first place, with Nolle about three seconds behind him in second place. Senior tri-captain Pat Biggs completed the top three. In the 200-yard individual medley, Christensen took first place, with senior tri-captain Colin Hanna trailing in second and freshman Daniel Hasler in third.

The Tigers kept their momentum going into the second day of the meet and won the first event of the day: the 4x200-yard medley relay. Sophomore Kaspar Raigla, Christensen, junior Mike Monovoukas and Faux teamed up to grab the top spot.

Hanna achieved a NCAA B-cut time in the 400-yard individual medley, with a time of 3 minutes, 50.04 seconds, and won the event by just under five seconds.

The final day began with the 1,650-yard freestyle race, and three Tigers finished in the top four spots. Nolle battled against Florida’s Jonathan Jordan for the first-place spot,but fell behind by 1.24 seconds. Nolle finished 17.73 seconds in front of McNamara, who took third.

Christensen continued to dominate the 200-yard breaststroke, as he has in every meet this season. He finished in 1:58.15, five seconds ahead of second-place finisher freshman K.J. Park.

The final event of the weekend was the 4x400-yard freestyle relay, and two of the Tigers’ foursomes came in second and third. In second place was the team of Cordes, freshman Ian Rea, junior Matt LaMonaca and Monovoukas at 3:03.15. Christensen, sophomore Will Lawley, Raigla and McNamara teamed up to finish in third, two seconds later.

In diving, sophomore Stevie Vines came in first for the Tigers and third overall in the three-meter event but took first place overall in platform diving with 333.4 points.

“We were successful this weekend, because we have been training very hard up to this point,” Cordes said. “Practices are only going to get more intense as the season goes further, so I’m excited to see how fast we will be able to get, since we already put up such fast times this early in the season.”

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The women captured their victory with 1,190 points, to Florida’s second-place finish with 828 points. Washington State was just behind the Gators with 820 points. Brown and Rider took fourth and fifth place, respectively, with 440 and 310 points. The women’s win in the dual meet against Brown brings their dual-meet winning streak to 34. The Tigers were led by senior co-captain Megan Waters and freshmen Karen Wang and Andrea Kropp.

Waters took the first top finish for Princeton on Friday, winning the 50-yard sprint and setting a pool record. Her time was 22.68 seconds, which beat Washington State by only .16 seconds.

After the first day, the Tigers were in the lead, closely followed by Washington State. Most of Princeton’s points from the first day came not from first- place finishes but from depth. In the 500-yard freestyle race and the 200-yard individual medley, the Tigers placed four swimmers in the top seven to rack up their score.

Princeton extended its lead from 17 points after the first day to 203 on the second by taking first place in three events. The 200-yard medley relay came first, which Wang, Kropp, Waters and freshman Lisa Boyce won with two seconds over the second-place Washington State team. Kropp then went on to win the 400-yard individual medley, achieving a NCAA B-cut time of 4:18.66.

Princeton’s third first-place finish came in the 100-yard backstroke, which Boyce won in 54.10 seconds, setting a new Princeton record. Five of the top seven finishers of the race were Tigers, including Waters, junior Meredith Monroe, Wang and senior Julie Kochman.

The Tigers continued to dominate in the final day of the meet. Kropp won the 200-yard breaststroke race in 2:11.62, beating the former Princeton record by two seconds.

Princeton had a few races in which they placed swimmers in both the second- and third- place spots. In the 200-yard backstroke, Monroe, the reigning Ivy League champion, took second place, with Wang behind her in third. Sophomore Carter Stephens placed second in the 200-yard butterfly, and sophomore Kathy Qu took third. Qu is also a staff writer adn copy editor of The Daily Princetonian.

After this big meet, the Tigers now have a break from meets until they host Dartmouth at home on Jan. 23. However, the break does not include much rest.

“In the next few weeks, we really get into our hardest training, with only a little break for the holidays,” Cordes said. “We still have a few more dual meets, but everything is in preparation for the HYP meet as well as Ivy Championships.”