M. Swimming, Diving Dominate Penn

The Harvard men's swimming team celebrated Presidents' Day in style over the weekend.

Competing in front of a full group of potential high school recruits,

Harvard handed Penn a devastating 227-54 loss Saturday afternoon.

At noon on Saturday, the Crimson began what would turn out to be a two-hour embarrassment for the Quakers.

Harvard started off the meet untraditionally with an individual event, the 100-meter backstroke. The Crimson's success in the first event was an indicator of things to come.

Junior Michael Im, freshman Dan Shevchik and sophomore Kyle Egan went 1-2-3, respectively, in the event, shutting out all Quakers from the top three spots.

Im later crowned himself a double event winner, taking the 200 individual medley in a time of 1:56.51.

After establishing its dominance early during the meet, Harvard chose not to compete with its strongest lineup and even swum several of its best swimmers exhibition, meaning that the swimmers were allowed to compete in their individual events without actually scoring points for the team.

Harvard went on to win the top three spots in 10 of the 12 individual

swimming events, leaving only two events in which Penn managed to squeak only one swimmer into third place.

The Crimson's divers performed well for the Crimson to complement the swimmers' success.

Freshman duo Erik Patton and Adam Grant held off the Quakers with Patton and Grant placing first and second in both the one-meter and three- meter events.

Patton's high scores on Saturday qualified him for the NCAA Zone diving meet on both boards. The top two divers from that meet will earn a spot at NCAAs in April.

"It was great to see [Patton] put it all together," said sophomore diver Erik Frost. "He really had an outstanding meet."

Junior Will Oren's time of 1:47.26 in the 200 butterfly and 3:54.96 in the exhibition 400 individual medley qualify him for consideration for NCAAs.

Oren turned in a strong performance against the Quakers. Oren's time in the 200 fly

was an amazing full two seconds under the consideration time and only a

second off the automatic qualifying standard. His success against the Quakers on Saturday will put him among the frontrunners of NCAA championship hopefuls.

The Crimson placed first and second in every single individual event, and won the only relay swim, the 200 freestyle relay.

In addition to Im's success, Matt Wrenshall was also a double winner for the Crimson men, capturing the 100-meter breaststroke {56.82} and the 200 freestyle {1:39.58}.

"Matt Wrenshall was my hero [on Saturday]," said Catie Lee, a member of the Harvard women's swimming team. "After a tough season, he really showed the Ivy League what he's made of."

The Harvard's men swimming team, now completed with its undefeated dual meet season, look forward to competing for the Eastern Championships, which will take place during the first weekend of March at Princeton's DeNunzio Pool.