Swimming & Diving: Teams host annual 3-day, 6-team tournament at DeNunzio

Brown, No. 4 Florida and Rider send their full teams to the meet; Washington State will only have its women’s side competing, and Columbia is sending its full men’s team and women’s diving team. Princeton and Brown will be competing as a dual meet.

The Tigers return home after a successful weekend road trip against Penn and Cornell during which both Princeton squads took first place. This puts both the men and women in second place in the Ivy League behind Harvard, which boasts a 3-0 Ivy League record.

The Brown men and women are both in sixth place, and the Columbia men are right behind the Tigers in third place, with a league record of 2-1.

The Tiger women defeated Cornell 165-127 and Penn 171.5-120.5 and increased the team dual-meet win streak to 33. They saw strong leadership from senior co-captains Megan Waters and Ming Ong and had many freshman swimmers, such as Karen Wang and Maureen McCotter, step up for their first collegiate wins. In diving, junior Christina Kirkwood took first place in the three-meter dive.

“I think we have standout swimmers in every event,” Waters said.

The Tigers are proud of how their season has been progressing, improving in every meet.

“As a team, we swam well at UVA and took it up a notch the next weekend at Penn and Cornell,” Waters said. “This weekend I expect to see some close and exciting races.”

Washington State and Florida may pose some tough competition for the Tigers, however, as the Cougars are currently 10-1 overall and 5-0 in dual meets, and the Gators are ranked fourth in the nation.

Leading the way to first place was senior tri-captain Colin Hanna, who won three events for the Tigers, and juniors Jon Christensen and Colin Cordes, who each won two events. Sophomore Stevie Vines has been leading the diving team, winning the one-meter dive at both the Penn and Cornell meet and at University of Virginia the weekend prior.

Brown is coming off a very close loss to Dartmouth. The men lost by only two points, 151-149, and the women scored 144 points to the Big Green’s 156.

The Bears won 16 of the 34 events in the meet, with the women taking seven and the men winning nine. The Columbia men fell to Harvard two weeks ago but have defeated Army, Penn and Yale.

The Rider teams have not competed in three weeks, but the men lost their last meet to Delaware and La Salle. The women came in second place at their meet, beating La Salle 162-135 but falling to Delaware.

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With a solid two weeks of practice under their belts and home-pool advantage, the Tigers are hoping for a successful weekend.

“We’ve done a great job finishing strong in our races, and it is something we continue to work on in practice,” Waters said. “I think if we can take our races out a bit faster, we’ll see some improved times.”

But since the Big Al Open is one of the bigger meets of the season, both in importance and number of teams, the Tigers have a slightly different goal.

“Our focus this season has been on racing rather than on reaching goal times,” Waters said. “At our big meets like HYP and Ivies, it’s not about the time on the board; it’s about heart and taking the close races. If we race like we’ve been practicing, the times will follow.”