Men's Swimming and Diving Rolls Over Brown, Penn

If Saturday’s meet with Penn and Brown was supposed to be a trap for the Harvard men’s swimming and diving team, then the Crimson did not get the memo.

Over the weekend in Philadelphia, Harvard blew the doors off the Quakers and Bears for its two largest margins of victory this season. The Crimson medaled in every event of the eight-hour meet, taking multiple spots on the podium in most, en route to a 206-88 victory over Penn (7-3, 4-3) and a 226-74 win over Brown (5-3, 2-3).

“Just being able to stay focused for that long as a team and keep the energy level high was a challenge,” senior Christian Carbone said. “We went into the meet with the goal of not underestimating [Penn]...making sure that we go in guns ablazing and give it our all every single race and that’s exactly what we did, we pretty much dominated the entire meet.”

Now Harvard (8-0, 5-0 Ivy League) will enter the school year with an unblemished record—just in time for a matchup with similarly undefeated Yale in New Haven, Conn. over Super Bowl weekend.

Junior Steven Tan and freshman Dean Farris led the way for the Crimson, with each taking home three golds in the eight-hour meet. The pair was key in Harvard relay victories that were bookends to the weekend sweep.

Tan swam the opening leg for a 200-meter medley relay team that took first in the weekend’s first swimming event. The Aurora, Ill. native was followed by senior Maxim Yakubovich (butterfly) and juniors Shane McNamara (breaststroke) and Ed Kim (freestyle). Together the group edged out Penn by nearly two seconds.

All four members of the quartet took home other medals on the weekend. Tan, Yakubovich, and Kim were joined by Farris in the 400-yard freestyle relay, in which Harvard won with a time of 3:00.18.

“I think that we’re performing the best we have all season,” junior diver Bobby Ross said. “We just got off of training trip so that was a really intense period of training. For the divers, we’re doing better than we have all season. We just feel really confident and really consistent in all of our performances.”

Between victories in the two relays, McNamara took home gold in the 100-yard breaststroke and fourth in the 200-yard variety of that event; Tan laid claim to a victory in the 50-meter freestyle; and Yakubovich was third in the 200-yard butterfly. Farris won the 100 and 200-yard freestyles, with classmate Zach Snyder taking third in the latter.

“This year’s freshman class, at least since I’ve been here, has definitely been one of the best,” Carbone said. “They comparatively get better every year which I think speaks a lot to the direction Ivy League swimming is moving in. It just shows how competitive Ivy League swimming is getting, which is absolutely amazing.”

Farris has not looked like a freshman at all this year, winning the 100 free in every Ivy contest this season. Snyder has also been a standout for the Crimson, edging out sophomore Brennan Novak in the 500-yard freestyle. The silver was Novak’s second podium finish of the day, with the 2015 Gonzaga College High School graduate taking first in the 1,000-yard freestyle. Not to be outdone by his first-year classmates, Daniel Chang came out on top in two separate 200-yard events—the breastroke and the individual medley, in which he set a pool record.

Harvard’s one medal sweep on the weekend came in the 200-yard backstroke, with sophomore Daniel Tran, senior Jack Manchester, and junior Koya Osada going one-two-three. Tran broke the pool record in that race and also took third in the 100-yard backstroke, a race which Osada won. Senior Christian Carbone won the 200-yard butterfly and junior Luke Morgan-Scott brought home gold in the 100-yard edition.

The Crimson also medaled in the two diving events of the weekend. Juniors Bobby Ross and David Pfeifer were the top two finishers in one-meter diving while Pfeifer also took third in the three-meter. The performances in the one-meter were personal bests for both juniors.

“It was really exciting for us because we both had the 12 best dives that we’ve ever put together collectively on one board,” Ross said. “It was just really fun being in rhythm with a teammate and both be crushing dive after dive so that was really exciting.”

—Staff writer Stephen J. Gleason can be reached at stephen.gleason@thecrimson.com.