Pre-Season Work Pays Off as M. Swimmers Win

At a time when many students are enjoying their last few weeks of summer vacation, 15 motivated swimmers on the Harvard men's swim team decided to participate in optional workouts two weeks before the academic year began.

After winning the Eastern championships last year and finishing the season with a 10-2 dual meet record, the swimmers were not content with their success; they wanted national recognition, and they wanted it bad.

While the squad's season-opening 235-53 destruction of Columbia yesterday certainly wasn't significant enough to guarantee that national status, it was a good first step in that direction.

Going into last night's meet, the Crimson were expected to handily defeat its opponent.

Last year, the Crimson handed the Lions a loss by a similar score of 232-62.

But last night's win was different from the Crimson's win a year ago.

It had style.

"The first competition is always a good indicator of how the season is going to go," freshman Matt Cornue said.

If this race was a good indicator of what is to come for the team, the future is certain to be exciting.

The Crimson swept all 14 of the swimming events, plus both the one-meter and three-meter diving competitions.

Impressive performances by the freshman class gave the Crimson an enormous boost.

Freshman Brian Younger proved that he is one of the strongest distance swimmers in the country by taking first place in both the distance freestyle and the individual medley.

"When you get freshman stepping up and seeing what he [Younger] does, it makes the rest of the team step up," senior co-captain Tim Carver said.

Other exceptional performances by freshman came from Rob Anagnoson, who took first place in 100 fly and second in the 200 fly; Matt Cornue, first in the 100 freestyle; and Juuso Linnoila, first in the 100 breastroke and second in the 200 breastroke.

The upperclassmen also fared well. Carver, the defending Eastern conference champion in the 100 backstroke, took that title along with the 200 backstroke. And junior Brian Livingston came away with a victory in the 200 freestyle and a second-place finish in the 500 freestyle.

The Crimson also took first in both the 200 freestyle relay and the medley relay.

"All of the guys stuck to their strategies," Carver said. "Even if their times weren't indicative of their performance, their swimming went well."

"Well" is somewhat of an understatement. The Crimson swimmers came away with the top three spots in the 500 free, 100 fly, IM, three-meter diving, 200 free, 100 back, 200 fly, 200 back and 100 free events.

"The whole team was very successful," Younger said. "We swept all of the events. We supported each other as a whole--the meet was very exciting."

Looking ahead to the rest of the season, the team has three team goals. First, it wants to win the Ivy League and the Eastern championships. Second, it wants to have several individuals and all relays qualify for the NCAA's. and finally, it wants to finish with a top-15 ranking.

Last year, the Crimson finished off the season on a positive note. Carver says that this year the team is two tothree months ahead of where they were last year at this time.

If his assumption is correct, those extra-workout sessions at the beginning of the season might just pay off after all. Harvard  232 Columbia  62