Princeton Rolls to 70 Point Lead in Men's Eastern Swimming Meet

PROVIDENCE--For the first two days of the Eastern Men's Swimming and Diving Championships here at Smith Swimming Center, the Harvard men's swimming team has remained right on the heels of defending champion Princeton.

But unless they finish strongly in tonight's finale, the Crimson may have to settle for a close second.

Last night in front of 600 spectators, the Tigers were able to increse their lead over Harvard to 70 points, 31 more than the previous evening. Princeton leads with 375 points after the second day, while Harvard has snagged 305 points. Penn State jumped ahead of Navy into the third position with 188 points.

The Tigers increased their lead despite only winning one event the entire night--the 800 freestyle relay. Strong depth in most events, however, enabled Princeton to stay strong overall.

The Crimson, meanwhile, added two more individual titles to bring its total to four in 13 races, the best of any school at the meet. Freshman Scott Jaffe remains unbeaten in his Eastern meet races, as the freshman grabbed the gold in the 200-yd. freestyle. Another Yardling, Paul Watson, rose to the occasion and placed first in the 100 backstroke.

The 200 freestyle proved to be a rematch of the Harvard-Princeton dual meet with Princeton star Mike Ross and Jaffe going toe-to-toe. Again, Ross challenged Jaffe but could not stay with him in the final yards. Jaffe's winning time was 1:37.34, 59 ahead of Ross's second-place mark.

Watson was seeded second in the finals of the backstroke, but moved out after 50 yards and withheld a strong bid by Walt Sopp of Penn State to grab the top spot with a time of 51.42 seconds.

Other strong finishes for the Crimson came in the 100 breaststroke, 100 butterfly and 400 individual medley. Spike Lutz and Joey Zumpano touched third and fourth in the breaststroke, while Co-Captain Bill Bird gained sixth in the 100 fly. Despite an illness, Jeff Peltier was good for fourth in the i.m.

But even with some fast swims, Harvard finds itself down by a sizeable margin with one day of competition left. Having a few strong events left, most notably the 200 breaststroke, nobody is counting it out of the title race. But if the Crimson has any hope of winning today, it must swim exceptionally well.