2016 Men’s Ivy Championships Day 2: Harvard Holds Lead

2016 Men’s Ivy League Championships

• Thursday, February 18 – Saturday, February 20
• Katherine Moran Coleman Aquatics Center, Providence, RI (Eastern Time Zone)
• Defending Champion: Princeton (results)
• Live results
• Live video
• Championship Central

At the end of the second day of the 2016 Men’s Ivy League Championships, Harvard found themselves maintaining a roughly 50 point lead on Princeton, the defending league champions. In their effort to take down the historically dominant Princeton tigers, the Harvard men have so far earned 1018 points to Princeton’s 965.5. The University of Pennsylvania Quakers sit comfortably in third with 831.5 points due to three individual event champions and nine top eight finishes tonight.

200 Medley Relay

Harvard saw their first victory of the night in the 200 medley relay over defending champ Princeton, thanks to a huge 20.32 fly leg by Max Yakubovich. An 18.99 split from Tiger En-Wei Hu-Van Wright couldn’t quite close the gap, and Princeton touched just behind the Crimson. Columbia senior Omar Arafa opened the Lions’ relay with a 22.14 backstroke split, propelling them to third.

Top eight:

1. Harvard 1:25.57
2. Princeton 1:26.27
3. Columbia 1:27.35
4. Cornell 1:27.59
5. Brown 1:27.67
6. Dartmouth 1:28.27
7. Penn 1:28.34
8. Yale 1:29.09

1000 Free

Penn distance stud Chris Swanson showed no mercy en route to his second consecutive championship in this event. He jumped out to an early lead to touch over three seconds ahead of Yale’s Brian Hogan, despite falling just short of his own conference record of 8:49.55. After winning the 500 last night, Swanson posted an opening 500 split of 4:22.52 to take an early advantage over Hogan’s 4:26.00. Harvard claimed bronze through Logan Houck, while Swanson’s teammate Alex Peterson also joined the top three in the sub-9:00 club.

Top eight:

1. Chris Swanson, Penn 8:51.32
2. Brian Hogan, Yale 8:54.49
3. Logan Houck, Harvard 8:56.18
4. Alex Peterson, Penn 8:59.57
5. Brennan Novak, Harvard 9:01.90
6. Kent Haeffner, Harvard 9:05.87
7. Ben Lerude, Yale 9:06.04
8. Jack Boyd, Harvard 9:07.09

400 IM

The Quakers continued their hot streak with another event title through freshman Mark Andrew, who cut over two seconds off of his morning swim to dominate the field. Andrew has had a fantastic season in this event, lowering his high school best time nearly four and a half seconds over the past few months. Andrew also took down the Penn school record, meet record, pool record, and clocked in nearly two seconds faster than the NCAA Championship qualifying time from 2015. Princeton laid claim to the minor medals with Corey Okubo and Sam Smiddy picking up silver and bronze. Yale star Kei Hyogo just missed the podium after his bronze medal performance last night, outsplitting Smiddy by six tenths on the freestyle leg but falling just a quarter of a second short of usurping the Tiger.

Top Eight:

1. Mark Andrew, Penn 3:43.53
2. Corey Okubo, Princeton 3:46.04
3. Sam Smiddy, Princeton 3:46.73
4. Kei Hyogo, Yale 3:46.97
5. Thomas Dillinger, Penn 3:48.39
6. Christian Yeager, Harvard 3:49.52
7. Cole Buese, Princeton 3:50.02
8. Grant Proctor, Penn 3:50.55

100 Fly

Harvard and Princeton clashed head-to-head yet again in the 100 fly. Yakubovich of Harvard and Princeton’s Ben Schafer touched only two hundredths of a second apart at the halfway mark, but Yakubovich pulled away the third length to touch out Schafer and secure a win for the Crimson. Schafer, an Australian native, has had an impressive trajectory in the short pool over the last year, dropping nearly a second and a half in this event from his B final performance in 2015. Columbia earned an individual podium spot through Terry Li, who fought off Harvard’s Steven Tan to take the bronze.

Top Eight:

1. Max Yakubovich, Harvard 46.59
2. Ben Schafer, Princeton 46.79
3. Terry Li, Columbia 47.07
4. Steven Tan, Harvard 47.26
5. Zach Buerger, Princeton 47.35
6. Kevin Frifeldt, Columbia 47.55
7. Jacob Luna, Harvard 47.72
8. Daniel Klotz, Brown 47.87

200 Free

The Penn Quakers returned to the top in the 200 with defending champion Eric Schultz topping the field by over a second and a half to retain his title. The entire rest of the field all proved podium contenders, with only .38 seconds separating second from eighth. At the touch, Harvard’s Aly Abdel Khalik and Princeton’s Julian Mackrel cracked 1:37 to earn the minor medals. Notably, yet another competitive time was posted in the B final as Penn’s Kevin Su threw down a lifetime best of 1:37.00 to take ninth.

Top Eight:

1. Eric Schultz, Penn 1:35.22
2. Aly Abdel Khalik, Harvard 1:36.77
3. Julian Mackrel, Princeton 1:36.81
4. Adrian Lin, Yale 1:37.01
5. Teo D’Allesandro, Princeton 1:37.06
6. Jonathan Rutter, Yale 1:37.06 (tie for 5th)
7. Scott Bole, Yale 1:37.08
8. Sandy Bole, Princeton 1:37.15

100 Breast

Breaststroke ace Alex Evdokimov clinched a decisive victory for the Cornell Big Red, shutting out the rest of the field by over a second. Evdokimov, the defending champion, dropped another seven tenths off his winning time from 2015, shattering Jonathan Christensen’s meet record of 52.86 by nearly a half second. Evdokimov also led two other swimmers under the former pool record, breaking it himself by nearly a second and a half. Also under the former mark were Harvard’s Shane McNamara and Harvard’s Sanborn, taking second and third over Columbia’s Codi Saunders.

Top Eight:

1. Alex Evdokimov, Cornell 52.46
2. Shane McNamara, Harvard 53.60
3. Byron Sanborn, Princeton 53.68
4. Codi Saunders, Columbia 53.94
5. Colin McHugh, Penn 54.00
6. Cole Hurwitz, Penn 54.29
7. Chris Meyers, Brown 54.35
8. Jack Pohlmann, Princeton 54.36

100 Back

After ceding the 50 free title last night, Princeton’s Hu-Van Wright came back today with a vengeance, outpacing the field by over a full second to take the 100 backstroke win. Hu-Van Wright managed to take down the meet, pool, and Princeton school records in the process. His teammate Alex Lewis put in a strong first 50 to earn silver, while Dartmouth claimed their only podium finish of the day with a third-place effort from James Verhagen. Fresh off a victory in the 100 fly, Harvard’s Yakubovich trailed Verhagen by eight hundredths of a second, falling just short of the top three.

Top Eight:

1. En-Wei Hu-Van Wright, Princeton 46.13
2. Alex Lewis, Princeton 47.36
3. James Verhagen, Dartmouth 47.53
4. Max Yakubovich, Harvard 47.61
5. Andrew Helber, Princeton 47.69
6. CJ Schaffer, Penn 47.75
7. Jack Manchester, Harvard 48.04
8. Steven Tan, Harvard 48.43

800 Free Relay

In possibly the most exciting race of the night, Princeton, Penn and Yale squared off in the 800 free relay. The trio kept it close to the final touch, with all teams finishing within .28 seconds of each other. The Princeton team of Schafer, Mackrel, D’Allesandro, and Sandy Bole emerged the victor, edging the Quakers by .06 seconds despite a strong closing charge from Penn. All three teams’ anchors split under 1:36, the fastest of which was a 1:35.03 split from Penn’s Schultz. Harvard finished over five seconds behind the lead pack to take fourth while Columbia’s relay team was disqualified due to a false start.

Top Seven:

1. Princeton 6:25.73
2. Penn 6:25.79
3. Yale 6:26.01
4. Harvard 6:31.17
5. Brown 6:40.41
6. Dartmouth 6:41.64
7. Cornell 6:42.45

Team scores after day 2:

1. Harvard 1018
2. Princeton 965.5
3. Penn 831.5
4. Yale 572
5. Cornell 537
6. Columbia 524
7. Brown 438
8. Dartmouth 343