The Ivy League swimming and diving schedule doesn’t begin until October 1st, well after the rest of Division I teams are into the rhythm of their seasons.
Cornell kicks things off for the Ancient Eight this year with a scrimmage against Buffalo on October 18. There are intrasquad meets happening all throughout the league, although only Brown’s shows up on an official schedule. The first conference competition takes place on the weekend of November 14-16.
2013-14 Look Back
We expected the Ivy Championships to be another showdown between Princeton (who at that point had won five consecutive titles) and Harvard. We gave a slight edge to the latter because with Ivies taking place in Cambridge, they had home-pool advantage. We also predicted that Penn or Yale would unseat Columbia at the third spot; it turns out both the Quakers and the Bulldogs finished the season in front of the Lions. Dartmouth, with Swimmer of the Meet Nejc Zupan, was sixth. Brown and Cornell rounded out the standings.
One interesting item we hadn’t counted on was the move of Harvard breaststroker Chuck Katis to Cal. Harvard barely skipped a beat, though, as the depth of their roster allowed them to compensate for the loss. The Crimson won the meet in front of their home crowd with an 82-point margin over Princeton.
In hindsight one could say that Harvard won the meet by the end of Day One. They jumped way out front after the 500 free, and even though Princeton closed the gap on Day Two, they couldn’t keep the Crimson from loading up the finals of the 500/200/100 free and that’s what made the difference.
Meanwhile a nice battle was taking place between Penn and Yale for third. Yale had given some outstanding performances at the Harvard-Yale-Princeton tri-meet three weeks prior, and it was thought the Bulldogs still had a taper left in them. But Yale had a couple of misses and Penn had a few surprises (such as 200 IM and 200 breast), and in the end the Quakers outscored the Bulldogs by 63 points.
Harvard (1,495)
Key losses: Chris Satterthwaite, (91 individual points at Ivies), Oliver Lee (63), Joe Zarrella (54), Danny Crigler (37)
Key additions: Jack Boyd (NY – FR), Kent Haeffner (FL – FR), Ed Kim (WA – SP FR), Shane McNamara (NY – BR/IM), Koya Osada (NC – IM/FL), David Pfeifer (NH – Dive), Bobby Ross (CT – Dive), Steven Tan (IL – FL)
Princeton (1,413)
Key losses: Daniel Hasler (72 individual points), Mark O’Connell (51), Paul Nolle (22.5), Ian Rea (20.5)
Key additions: Zach Buerger (PA – FL/BK/IM/FR), Liam Fitzgerald (PA – Dive), Drew Jung (CA – Dive), Liam Karas (CA – IM), Alex Lewis (CT – FR/FL/BK), Corey Okubo (CA – FL/BK/IM), Ben Schafer (Australia – FR/FL), Tyler Sullivan (KY – FR/BK)
Penn (1050)
Key losses: Rhoads Worster (74 points), Will Hartje (19)
Key additions: Hunter Brakovec (NC – FL/FR), Andrew Drummond (VA – IM/B/FR), Alex Peterson (CA – FR/IM), Chris Schaffer (PA – IM/BK), Taylor Uselis (FL – FR)
Yale (987)
Key losses: Tyler Pramer (48 points), Danny McDermott (20), Ed Becker (8)
Key additions: Dirk Bell (SC – FR/FL/IM), Matt Coetzee (South Africa – BR), Harrison Gu (MD – BR/IM), Kei Hyogo (Singapore – FR/IM), Derek Kao (CA – BR/IM), Yu-bin Kim (CA – FL/FR), Shawn Nee (MA – BK/FL/IM), Jonathan Rutter (OH – BR/IM), Wayne Zhang (IN – Dive)
Columbia (955)
Key losses: Harry Stephenson (46.5 points), Philipp Gaissert (41), Eric Traub (5)
Key additions: Jayden Pantel (Canada – Dive), Forrest Davis (NJ – BR/FR), Kevin Frifeldt (HI – FR/FL), Bradley Gibble (PA – BK/FL/IM), Mitchell Herrera (MN – FR), Joseph Lozano (NY – BR/IM), Jae Park (IL – FR/BR/IM), Joe Shepley (CT – FR/BK/FL), Gregory Song (MD – FR/IM), Zach Thomas (TX – BR/IM), Michal Zyla (CA – FR/BK)
Dartmouth (718)
Key losses: Nejc Zupan (90 points), Benjamin Weill (22), Andrew North (14), Dylan Gabel (5)
Key additions: Ian Bateman (NJ – FR), Brandon Boval (CA – IM/FR), Zack Browne (VA – FL/IM/FR), Jack Cardwell (WI – SP FR), Bruno Korbar (Croatia – FR/FL), Brett Seeley (NH – FL), Henry Senkfor (OH – BK/IM), Anthony Shen (CA – FR), Mykhailo Tovmashenko (Ukraine – SP FR), Dang Tran (PA – FR)
Brown (679.5)
Key losses: Tommy Glenn (79 points), Oliver Diamond (6), Paul Hunter (6)
Key additions: Bryce Campanelli (VA – Dive), Grant Casey (MA – FR/FL), Joshua Daniel (Saint Lucia – FR), Luke Hayhoe (China – FR/BK), Talbot Jacobs (CA – FR/BK/FL), Declan Kennon (NY – BK/IM), Willy Lee (CA – BK), Riley Springman (FL – FL/IM), Brendan Woo (NJ – FL/FR/IM)
Cornell (561.5)
Key losses: Philip Truong (38 points), Taylor Wilson (30), Harry Harpham (27), Ben Catanese (23.5)
Key additions: Jack Brenneman (PA – FL/FR), Vincent Declercq (Belgium – FL), Alex Evdokimov (FL – BR), Slater Goodman (CA – BR/FR), Kevin Ma (China – FL/FR), Dylan Magee (NY – BR), Buzz Rehnberg (MN – SP FR), Kyle Rooney (NY – Dive), Ryan Sharkey (TX – Dist), Will Stange (NJ – BK/FR), Noah Sterling (OH – Dive), Brandon Sweezer (SC – Dist)
2014-15 Look Forward
This is what it will look like at DeNunzio Pool in February, when Princeton hosts the 2015 Ivy League Championships. Photo: Victoria Lepesant
Composite 2014-15 Ivy League calendar men
This probably isn’t the year that Princeton and Harvard lose their holds on the top two rungs of the Ivy ladder. The two have finished first and second in the Ivy standings almost every year since the conference championships became a scored meet in 1992.
It is likely to be a very, very close race this year. Although Princeton hosts the 2015 Ivy League Championships, Harvard hasn’t lost too many points to graduation and they still seem to have a lock on most of the freestyle events. That kind of dominance gets a boost in the double-counted relays, too. Plus, no one will match Harvard’s All-American diver, Mike Mosca.
Princeton did bring in a terrific class of 2018, but the Tigers already dominated in IMs; where they need to steal points from Harvard will be in the 100/200/500 free. On the other hand, home-pool advantage swings to Princeton this year. This one just might be too close to call.
Penn and Yale should provide the next bit of excitement. Penn’s three biggest point-scorers last year are only juniors this season: Chris Swanson, Eric Schultz, and Bobby Francis. Their fourth, Cole Hurwitz, is a sophomore. The Quakers are continuing to attract talent and have put together an outstanding class of 2018. If Princeton and Harvard were ever to have a recruiting “miss,” Penn is showing its readiness to step in. Yale, too, has been getting stronger each year. Big 2014 scorers Brian Hogan and Kevin Stang are only juniors; Rob Harder, Alwin Firmansyah and Andrew Heymann are back for their final campaign as seniors. The Bulldogs had a nice recruiting haul, too. Hopefully it will be another year of great things out of New Haven.
Columbia averaged the same number of points-per-scorer as Yale at 2014 Ivies, but only 19 of the Lions’ swimmers and divers scored; that 20th scorer is what put Yale into fourth in the standings. Columbia returns its biggest names: All-American David Jakl, Kevin Quinn, and Alex Ngan are seniors. Sophomores Jack Foster and Nikita Bondarenko were instrumental for the Lions last year, too.
Cornell returns sophomore Dylan Sali, who racked up almost twice as many points as the next highest Big Red scorer. They have also assembled a large, and really quite strong, freshman class. This could be the year Cornell leapfrogs Dartmouth and Brown. The key for the Big Red will be to get more swimmers and divers into finals; they only had 18 men score last year.
Dartmouth lost Nejc Zupan to graduation, which was a big blow but it had to happen one day. The next-highest scorers, James Verhagen, Brett Gillis, and Daniel Whitcomb are all juniors. The Big Green added ten swimmers/divers to its roster this year, including a couple from Europe who might surprise to the upside.
Like Dartmouth, Brown had to say goodbye to its star, Tommy Glenn, after last season. Junior Cory Mayfield and senior Jeffrey Strausser were the highest scorers after Glenn; they will lead the 2014-15 campaign. In fact, the Bears’ roster has great depth. They put all 20 of their entrants into scoring position last year but if you take out Glenn, Mayfield and Strausser, the average was only 13 points per person. Brown has recently split the men’s and women’s programs and hired new coaches. This could be the beginning of a big turnaround for the Bears.
Individual points lost are only part of the story. How did the graduating class impact the relays which count double. Flipping between two teams 1st and 2nd is a 16 point swing and with five relays not insignificant.
Lot of impressive newcomers to watch their impact
Oops. I think you meant 1992 rather than 1962.
Much thanks for the preview and all the coverage you provide.
I like the way this was written; each team has a positive spin in some way. Nicely done.
In a sense it goes back to 1962 as the present meet evolved from the EISL that included Army and Navy until the dropped or were dropped out. It used to have many others in years past also. 1992 is probably try went on their own. First winner was Princeton and of course Yale and Harvard with a win by Penn in 1971. Interesting that it is now scored with 3 final heats and some othe conferences may follow suit. When Conso’s began in Big Ten in early 60’s it was to dilute a certain tem and help a couple score with automatic relay points when they only used 6 lanes
Sorry, based on the original 1962 date, I took a guess that Ivy League Conference Meet began in 1992. It was much, much later. The meet was restricted to Ivy League teams and the academies starting in 1996. Army attended through 2004 and Navy participated for the last time in 2008. So the meet has been restricted to Ivy League teams only since 2009. One reason the 1962 date didn’t make sense is because Yale was still the dominant team through the early 1970’s, winning their last championship in 1972. I believe Harvard and Princeton have finished 1st and 2nd among the Ivy League teams since 1973.