Harvard Begins Season on Right Note With Victory

The Harvard men’s swimming and diving team kicked off its new season in style, easily defeating Penn by a score of 189-101 on Saturday at Blodgett Pool.

The Quakers (0-1) were overmatched in nearly every event, as the Crimson (1-0) took first in all but two of 16 races.

The rout was exactly what Harvard was looking for, giving the Crimson some momentum to start the year.

“It’s really important, especially for the freshmen who haven’t been to a meet like this,” Crimson co-captain Jason Degnan-Rojeski said. “Obviously Penn isn’t the best team in the league, but it’s important that we swam fast today and had some good times.”

Junior Geoff Rathgeber, who placed first in all three of his individual events and was the lead leg on the Crimson’s winning 200-yard medley relay that began the meet, led all Harvard swimmers in scoring at the meet.

After winning the 100-yard breastroke and the 200-yard backstroke, he culminated his dominating performance in the 400-yard individual medley, which he finished in 3:57.44, more than 17 seconds ahead of the second-place swimmer, Quaker freshman Ryan Dierberg.

“Geoff swam real fast,” Degnan-Rojeski said. “He was very good, as always.”

Although Rathgeber’s excellent swimming certainly bodes well for Harvard, perhaps the most encouraging displays at the meet came from the Crimson freshmen.

First years Mason Brunnick, Tommy Gray, and Alex Meyer combined for 16 points in a 1-2-3 finish in the 1000-yard freestyle. They then jumped right back into the water for the exhibition round of the 200-yard freestyle.

“Those three really showed some grit today,” Rathgeber said. “They were all exhausted afterwards, but hopefully they learned something from it and can take it into the next meet.”

Also coming up big for Harvard were the Jones twins, sophomores Bill and Dan. Bill took first in the 200-yard freestyle and Dan won the 200-yard butterfly. The two then turned the 100-yard butterfly into a family affair, with Bill coming in first at 50.03 and Dan finishing right behind him, trailing by only six hundredths of a second.

“It was pretty incredible to see,” Degnan-Rojeski said. “They were both very good.”

Degnan-Rojeski had success on Saturday as well, winning the 100-yard backstroke. He was not completely satisfied with his showing, nonetheless, as he placed No. 3 in the 200-yard backstroke and No. 6 in the 100-yard butterfly.

“I swam okay,” he said. “There’s some room for improvement still but it’s a long season.”

The Crimson had a strong showing on the diving front as well, as sophomore Tom Hehir won both the 1-meter and 3-meter diving events.

Although Harvard won by a large margin on Saturday, its swimmers agreed upon the need to stay focused. The Crimson will face more touted opposition later on this season.

“[Penn] swam better against us than they have in the past, but there’s much better competition out there in the league,” Rathbeger said. “In the next two meets we’re going to be tested, and we’ll find out what kind of team we are.”

Those two meets will feature the Crimson’s division foes, Cornell, Dartmouth, and Columbia. How Harvard responds to the challenge will help determine how well-founded the team’s high expectations for this season are.

“The ultimate goal is taking home the EISL trophy at the end of the season,” Rathgeber said. “We’ll do pretty good things this year.”