Men's Swimming and Diving Places Third at Quad Meet

This weekend the Harvard men’s swimming and diving team was able to keep its head above water, coming in third place in its quad meet.

The Crimson (5-2, 4-0 Ivy League) defeated Wisconsin 221.50-145.50, but fell to No. 18 Virginia 222.50-147.50 and finished behind the host team, No. 15 Virginia Tech, 232.50-137.50 Friday and Saturday at the Christiansburg Aquatic Center in Blacksburg, Virginia.

On Friday night, Harvard claimed its two first-place finishes with the sport’s simplest stroke, winning both the 100 yard freestyle and 400 yard freestyle relay.

“It felt really good to beat competitive teams like Virginia and Virginia Tech who are ranked much higher than us,” senior Griffin Schumacher said. “When we can place like that it feels good because it means good things for the program going forward both in the long run and looking toward Ivy League championships in March.”

Schumacher had a hand in each event, winning the 100 free in 44.84 and anchoring the 400 free relay with a 44.86 on the first 100 yards to start the race for Harvard. The other freestyle swimmers contributing to the first place finish were classmates Danny Crigler, Oliver Lee, and Chris Satterthwaite.

The same relay team was able to pull out another first place finish on Saturday, finishing the 200 yard freestyle relay in 1:21.19, a mere eight-tenths of a second before second-place Virginia Tech.

“On both relays that we won we’ve had the same three or four guys on that relay for roughly two years now, so the core of each of those relays has really been locked in which has given us a lot of opportunities to practice and get used to swimming together,” Satterthwaite said.

The 100 yard freestyle race also saw Satterthwaite and Lee finish in the top ten, with times of 45.15 and 46.01, respectively. Crigler finished the race in 46.47, which landed him in eleventh place.

Schumacher also came out ahead in the 50 free, which he won in 20.33, coming in less than a half a second before Virginia Tech’s Joe Bonk, who finished the race in 20.56. Satterthwaite and Lee also were not far behind, coming in third and fourth respectively with times of 20.85 and 20.88. Teammate freshman Paul O’Hara came in ninth in the event, touching the wall at 21.24.

Sophomore Jacob Luna also turned in successful swims for Harvard. He placed third in the 100 yard butterfly with a time of 49.88, as well as a 1:53.47 swim in the 200 IM that landed him in sixth place.

“We had some stronger events on Friday and then our middle session on Saturday we unfortunately are not as strong, but we definitely tried to use that momentum [from Friday] and even in some of those losses we pulled out some really strong swims,” Schumacher said.

Freshman Eric Ronda handed the Crimson three top five finishes, coming in second in the 200 yard backstroke with a time of 2:00.89 and placing fourth in the 100 breaststroke, touching the wall at 56.99. Ronda was also an anchor in Harvard’s seventh place finish in the 200 freestyle relay, and a part of the Crimson’s third place finish in the 400 medley relay.

The Crimson also found success in the 200 yard freestyle, where two Harvard swimmers placed in the top five. Satterthewaite came in third, turning in a time of 1:39.42 and junior Spenser Goodman followed close behind, finishing fifth in 1:39.96.

“A lot of us have been doing a lot of specific work, so the guys are kind of broken down at this point,” Satterthwaite said. “I think we raced pretty fast and accomplished some of the objectives we set out to [which were] primarily to be aggressive in racing some of these faster teams we don’t get to see during the regular season.”

On the diving side, Harvard placed eighth and 13th off the three meter platform. Senior Joe Zarella scored 317.90 points, while freshman Manasseh Oso recorded 257.65 points. From the one meter board, Zarella came in tenth with a score of 283.00 followed by Oso with a 249.20.

Although the Crimson did not come out on top, the team still has hope to improve upon its times further into the season.

“The important thing is to take everything into perspective,” Satterthwaite said. “Ultimately our goal is to win an Ivy championship at the end of the season and that we won’t see some of these tops times until then so we still have some time to work on our swims.”

—Staff writer Ariel Smolik-Valles can be reached at asmolikvalles@college.harvard.edu.