Men's Swimming Dominates Penn, 83-30

The Harvard men's swimming team had a lot to be concerned about when it journeyed to Penn on Saturday. The Quakers had already defeated perennial champion Princeton earlier in the year and, with the Crimson looking ahead to the Eastern Championships 10 days away, another upset seemed to be brewing.

Fortunately for Harvard, nobody told this to their hosts, who dropped an 83-30 decision to the Crimson at Sheer Pool in Philadelphia. Harvard (6-3 overall, 5-3 EISL and 4-2 Ivy League) dominated the meet, grabbing first place in 11 of the 13 events.

"These meets at the end of the year are great opportunities for us to perfect our races in time for Easterns," Co-Captain Keith Kaplan said. "We thought that Penn would be geared up for this one, and they did shave about half of their team, but obviously they weren't up to the challenge that our fast swimming gave them."

Kaplan and junior Ken Johnson paced the Crimson with two individual victories apiece. Kaplan snagged the top spot in both the 50- and 100-yd, freestyle races, with sophomore Greg Tull right behind in each to give Harvard 1-2 finishes in both sprint freestyle races. Johnson handled a difficult triple duty with ease, grabbing the gold in both the 1000 and 500 freestyle races and picking up third place in the 200 butterfly.

For All the Marbles

Co-Captain David Berkoff failed to lower his NCAA record while leading off the 400 medley relay, but his opening split of 48.49 seconds was fast enough to give the Harvard relay team an insurmountable lead.

Berkoff proved victorious in all three events in which he competed, helping the Crimson medley and freestyle relays to first place and touching ahead of the field in the 200 individual medley.

Other winners for Harvard were freshmen Kevin Williams in the 200 freestyle, Christ Kovacs in the 200 backstroke and Sumner Anderson (200 breastroke).

Healy-ing

Senior Patrick Healy snagged the one-meter diving competition and placed second on the three-meter board. His scores earned him a spot in the NCAA qualifying meet next month in Pennsylvania.

The Crimson hosts Yale Saturday in its final dual meet. On March 2, the three-day Eastern Championships will commence at Blodgett Pool.