The Harvard-Princeton-Yale double-dual meet usually features excellent competition between some of the best teams in the Ivy League. Both Harvard and Yale came in with only one loss, and Harvard had not yet lost to any Ivy League team. Incidentally, last year’s HYP meet was the last time the Tigers lost to an Ivy League team — they defeated Yale but lost to Harvard by 25 points. In last year’s league championship, Princeton needed some last-minute assistance from Columbia to repay the Crimson the favor and narrowly capture the title.
The victory on Saturday was anything but narrow. Of the 19 total events, 12 were won by a Princeton team or individual.
“We were expecting a lot of competition from [Harvard]. We were expecting it to be a pretty close meet,” senior tri-captain Colin Cordes said. “It was quite a surprise. We weren’t expecting to win by that much.”
Cordes won the 200-yard freestyle and the 200-yard backstroke and anchored the winning 400-yard medley relay team that also featured senior Charlie Wang, freshman Michael Strand and senior tri-captain Jon Christensen. Christensen won the 100-yard backstroke and was a member of the winning team in the 200-yard medley relay.
The seniors gave much of the credit to the youngest members of their team.
“All the freshmen, they kind of won the meet for us,” Christensen said.
Princeton freshmen took first or second place in seven individual events, with Strand winning the 100-yard backstroke and Harrison Wagner winning the 50-yard freestyle as well as the 100-yard freestyle. Cordes was very impressed by what he saw from the freshmen.
“Being their first HYP meet, this was their chance to prove themselves, to prove that they were one of the best classes of freshmen in the Ivy League,” he said. “They have a great future to look forward to.”
The women’s team, which competed on Saturday and Sunday, also came in with momentum. Ivy League champs for two years running, the Tigers had won 43 straight meets, with their last dual-meet loss coming at the beginning of the 2006 season. They were the only undefeated team left in the league and, along with Harvard, one of only two teams that had not lost to an Ivy League opponent.
Unfortunately for the Tigers, the Crimson brought their A game. Harvard overpowered Yale by 170 points and, though Princeton put up more of a fight, defeated the Tigers 190-110 to sweep the HYP meet.
“All season long we’ve been preparing for a really tough Harvard team,” junior Carter Stephens said. “We knew it would be a fight down to the very last race.”
Despite the disappointment of the snapped streak, Princeton has reason to hope for its third consecutive Ivy League championship. As with the men’s team, young swimmers provided most of the women’s highlights. Sophomore Lisa Boyce was the team’s standout swimmer, winning the 100-yard backstroke and the 50-yard freestyle on Saturday and the 100-yard freestyle on Sunday.
The only other win that Princeton recorded was junior Carter Stephens’ victory by .14 seconds in the 100-yard butterfly.
Yale’s Rachel Rosenberg placed first in both diving events, but those proved to be the Bulldogs’ only wins, giving the Tigers the 43rd and final victory of their streak. Harvard was leading Princeton coming in to Sunday and refused to give up the lead, ending the day by coming in first and second in the 400-yard freestyle relay.
Though the end of the streak is demoralizing, the Tigers’ hopes of winning the league are still very much alive. Along with the men’s team, they will face a strong Columbia team in DeNunzio Pool this weekend to close out what has been a strong season. For some members of the team, this weekend marked the last big meet of the season. Only 16 members can swim at the Ivy League Championships, which will be held in Princeton at the beginning of March.
Stephens acknowledged that the Tigers would be the underdog going into the championship but said that the team was determined to pull it out.
“This weekend really put the spur in a lot of us,” she said. “We know we’re going to have to bring a really solid fight.”
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