M. Swimming Cruises Over Penn

The Harvard men’s swimming and diving team closed out its regular season on Saturday in near perfect form, easily pushing aside Penn in a commanding display of talent and depth at Sheerr Pool.

The Crimson (8-1, 7-1 EISL) defeated the Quakers (7-5, 4-5) 220-80 in the year’s final dual meet, setting the stage for next month’s EISL Championships.

Harvard sent a powerful message with its dominating performance, touching the wall first in 13 out of 14 competitive races and outdiving Penn from both boards.

The Crimson’s victories in individual events were distributed amongst 10 different swimmers, with only co-captain Cory Walker placing first on more than one occasion—an accomplishment which he repeated for the second straight competition.

As it often does against weaker opponents, Harvard varied its lineup in preparation for the year-end events.

“A lot of swimmers swam different events than they normally do,” senior Mike Gentilucci said. “That kind of made it more evenly distributed.”

Harvard won the first five events and never looked back.

Senior Rick Dewey, Walker and Gentilucci set the pace early, winning the 1650-yard freestyle, the 200-yard freestyle and the 100-yard backstroke respectively before event five.

Though the Crimson dominated the top position, results were not as thoroughly commanding as in earlier meets this season at which Harvard regularly captured the top three or four places.

For the second meet in a row, the divers followed the swimmers’ lead, as junior Enrique Roy took first in both the 1- and 3-meter diving events, while freshman Danil Rybalko finished second and third in the two events, just edged out for second in the 3-meter competition.

The divers figure to play a critical role in deciding the EISL champion.

“I think divers are definitely really important as all three of us have chances to get in the top eight on both boards,” Rybalko said.

The Crimson returns to the water on March 6 at the Nassau County Aquatics Center, where the squad seeks to reclaim the EISL title it lost to Princeton last season.

“We’re just going to have to be tougher than Princeton,” Gentilucci said. “The meet will be won in the morning.”

—Staff writer Timothy J. McGinn can be reached at mcginn@fas.harvard.edu.