Men's Swimming and Diving Cruises to Victory Over Columbia

The Harvard men’s swimming and diving team prides itself on its depth. The Crimson can consistently rely on athletes across the team to produce results, and that fact was demonstrated clearly in Harvard’s second Ivy League meet of the year.

Double-digit Crimson swimmers picked up wins on Friday as Harvard (3-0, 3-0 Ivy) toppled Columbia (2-2, 2-1) in decisive fashion, 190-102, at Blodgett Pool. The result extends the Crimson’s run of victories over the Lions to 11 in a row.

“Overall, we had a great meet and improved on our performance from last week against Dartmouth and Cornell,” co-captain Eric Ronda said. “This meet really displayed both our depth as a team as well as our ability to post some very fast times for this point in the season.”

Harvard came out firing early in the meet and never looked back, sweeping the podium in the first two events of the day.

In the opening race, the 200 medley relay, the Crimson’s A, B, and C lineups all beat out Columbia’s top squad. Juniors Koya Osada and Shane McNamara, senior Max Yakubovich, and freshman Dean Farris took top marks with a time of 1:29.14. The B lineup of sophomore Daniel Tran, freshman Daniel Chang, and juniors Steven Tan and Ed Kim finished second, with co-captains Mitchell Foster and Ronda, sophomore Sebastian Lutz, and senior Paul O’Hara rounding out the podium in third.

Harvard maintained its momentum in the next event, taking the top three spots in the 1000 freestyle. Sophomore Brennan Novak touched the wall first, 11 seconds ahead of sophomore Logan Houck and 21 seconds in front of junior Kent Haeffner, who ended up second and third, respectively.

The Crimson would not lose an event until halfway through the meet, when Columbia junior Jayden Pantel, who won both the one-meter and three-meter dives at last year’s Ivy League Championships, took first place in the three-meter event with 404.18 points. Junior Bobby Ross ended up a distant second with a score of 330.3, narrowly edging out Lions freshman Shinya Condo by .3 points.

Pantel also won the one-meter dive later in the day. Ross finished in second place, and freshman Austin Fields picked up a third-place result to round out the podium.

Overall, Harvard took top marks in 12 of 16 events, also posting race-best times in exhibition heats in the final two events of the meet. The Crimson’s success came on the back of a team-wide effort, with Harvard swimmers from each class picking up wins.

Farris continued an impressive start to his debut season with a victory in the 200 freestyle. Freshman Zach Snyder came in third place, three seconds behind his fellow first-year. Farris would pick up top marks in the 100 freestyle as well, as Kim finished second.

Chang also had a strong meet, notching a solo win in the 200 breaststroke in a time of 2:00.18. McNamara would touch the wall less than half a second behind the freshman to finish second.

Not to be outdone, Snyder continued the run of victories by Crimson rookies with a win in the 500 freestyle. Novak touched the wall third in the event.

“We have an extremely talented freshman class that has integrated well into the team and understands our mission this year,” Ronda said.

The team’s upperclassmen contributed strong results as well, starting with Osada, who chipped in a win in the 100 backstroke. Sophomores Jack Manchester and Tran finished in a dead heat in the event to share second place.

The sophomore pair would face off again in the 200 backstroke, as Tran edged out Manchester by three tenths of a second to pick up an individual victory of his own.

Elsewhere, in the 100 breaststroke, McNamara and Chang reversed their order from the 200 breast, with the junior coming out ahead of the freshman for first and second places, respectively.

Harvard collected a string of one-two finishes to cement the win, as Tan and Lutz took the top two places in the 50 freestyle, Tan and Yakubovich replicated the result in the 100 butterfly, and senior Christian Carbone and Yakubovich did the same in the 200 butterfly.

Despite the dominant nature of the win, the Crimson is not getting ahead of itself.

“Today's results were good, but something we've stressed this season in particular is a rejection of complacency,” Yakubovich said. “While we're definitely experiencing some positive momentum from the meet today, it's important to never get overconfident and to continue looking for ways to get better.”

—Staff writer Sam O.M. Christenfeld can be reached at schristenfeld@college.harvard.edu.