Aquamen Destroy Army, Columbia

If the Crimson aquamen were looking for a new motto, they might want to alter that of yesterday's opponents: "Be all that you can be--in the free."

The freestylers powered Harvard (2-0, 2-0 EISL) into a 200-100 finish over Army at Blodgett Pool yesterday. This easy victory followed Harvard's dousing of Columbia on Friday, 224.5-50.5.

"The freestylers did a great job," coach Michael Chasson said yesterday. "The freestylers were our strength throughout."

"I would hope we're going to improve a lot [this year]," Chasson added. "We're ahead of where we were last year at this time."

Harvard's goals are to qualify as many swimmers as possible for the NCAA's, win the Eastern Championships and pick up an Ivy League title along the way, so two massive victories are a stroke in the right direction.

In the second event of yesterday's meet--the 1000m freestyle--sophomore Brian Younger glided past the rest of the racers. He had already put half the pool between himself and his closest competition--senior Jeff Marks--200 meters in.

Younger stayed steady, winning the race by more than five seconds with a time, of 9:13.37--his best unrested time in the 1000m. Marks came in second, beating the fastest Army swimmer by seven seconds.

From there on out, Harvard's toughest freestyle competition came front, well, Harvard. Every freestyle event belonged to the Crimson: In three races (200m freestyle, 100m freestyle and 400m I.M.), the four Crimson competitors captured the top four places.

"Matt Cornue did a real outstanding job. I was really impressed with what he did today," Chasson said.

Cornue led the Crimson in the 200 freestyle with a time of 1:42.24, followed by sophomore Eric Matuszak, freshman Jon Samuel and junior David Alpert.

"It was my best unrested time in my life," Cornue said. "I think we are much more relaxed [this year], and we have fun as a team as well as putting in a lot of work."

Although not every facet of the team shared the freestylers' overwhelming success, the Crimson picked up first-place finishes in every stroke except butterfly.

Freshman Greg Wriede won the 100m backstroke and the 200m breast-stroke before decisively capturing the top spot in the 400m IM with a time of less than four minutes. When asked which was his favorite race, he couldn't pick one.

"I felt good about all of them. On the 200 breast--after the first 100--I decided to try and win it," Wriede said. "The team is great--it's the best group of guys."

Other first-place finishers included junior Karl Scheer in the 100m freestyle, sophomore Alex Kurmakov in the 50m freestyle, Younger in the 200m backstroke and freshman Denis Sirringhaus in the 500m freestyle and the 400m relay team.

The diving team also won handily, defeating Army 169-95. Junior Vaughn Emerson took first in the 1m spring-board and second in the 3m, complemented by freshman Matt Murray, who placed first in the 3m and second in the 1m.

"Vaughn is just improving every year, [and] Matt Murray is a very experienced freshman," diving coach Keith Miller said. "It was a consistent performance. They outdove the other guys."

Lion Taming

If yesterday's meet was lopsided, then Friday's at Columbia was a total washout.

The Crimson won literally every event. In fact, it was somewhat unusual for any Harvard swimmer to place below any Lion.

The freestylers again came on strong, led by wins by Younger, Marks, Butts and Kurmakov.

Wriede took first in the 200IM and the 100m, and 200IM backstroke. Sophomore Greg Mone won the 100m breaststroke and freshman Terry Dougherty won the 200 breaststroke. Sophomore Eric Matuszak finished first in the 100 butterfly.

Harvard also captured the 400m free relay and the 200 medley relay. Emerson won both the 1m and 3m diving. Army  100 Harvard  200

Harvard  224.5 Columbia  50.5

Harvard  224.5 Columbia  50.5