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
On the final day of the 2016 Men’s Ivy League Championships, Princeton put in a monster session to defend their league title. The Tigers took down Harvard by a very slim 21.5 points despite the Crimson leading through the first two days of the meet. The University of Pennsylvania Quakers trailed the leaders by a decent margin but ended the meet nearly four hundred points ahead of fourth place Yale.
1650 Free
The 1650 was all Penn’s Chris Swanson, who completed the distance trifecta this weekend by taking down Yale’s Kei Hyogo. With his victory, Swanson not only completed the Ivy League four-peat in this event, but also took down the pool, league, and Penn school records. Accounting for Clark Smith’s and PJ Ransford’s conference swims from today, Swanson sits fourth in the nation with about three weeks until the NCAA Championships. Hyogo and his teammate Brian Hogan secured the minor medals with dual sub-15 minute swims, while Harvard’s Logan Houck touched fourth.
Top Eight:
- Chris Swanson, Penn 14:40.18
- Kei Hyogo, Yale 14:45.21
- Brian Hogan, Yale 14:55.44
- Logan Houck, Harvard 15:04.13
- Sam Smiddy, Princeton 15:10.43
- Brennan Novak, Harvard 15:10.47
- Alex Peterson, Penn 15:12.90
- Ben Lerude, Yale 15:13.44
200 Back
The 200 back featured a wide open race for the championship with five of the eight A finalists finishing between 1:43 and 1:44. The pack was lead by the fastest two morning swimmers, Princeton’s Corey Okubo and Harvard’s Jack Manchester. Okubo clinched the win with a monster last 50, gaining nearly a full second on Manchester to pass him at the end. After a 13th place finish in 2015, Cornell’s Will Stange dropped a second and a half from his best time to grab bronze, barely holding off Dartmouth’s James Verhagen to earn a podium spot.
Top Eight
- Corey Okubo, Princeton 1:43.07
- Jack Manchester, Harvard 1:43.35
- Will Stange, Cornell 1:43.50
- James Verhagen, Dartmouth 1:43.57
- Danny Tran, Harvard 1:43.76
- Cole Buese, Princeton 1:44.11
- Christian Yeager, Harvard 1:44.63
- Koya Osada, Harvard 1:45.11
100 Free
The 50 free runner-up and 200 free champion met in the middle, finishing dead even in a tie for first. Penn’s Eric Schultz turned at a quick 20.41 ahead of Princeton’s En-Wei Hu-Van Wright, but the Tiger made up enough ground to flip just .01 behind Schultz with a 25 to go. The two matched each other stroke for stroke, timing their synchronized finished perfectly. The pair finished in a time of 43.19, taking down the pool record by .02 seconds. Princeton’s Sandy Bole took the race out with his teammate Hu-Van Wright but couldn’t match his closing speed, racing in to third in 43.58.
Top Eight:
- Eric Schultz, Penn 43.19
- En-Wei Hu-Van Wright, Princeton 43.19 (tie for 1st)
- Sandy Bole, Princeton 43.58
- Ed Kim, Harvard 43.73
- Ben Schafer, Princeton 43.87
- Alex Lewis, Princeton 43.92
- Sebastian Lutz, Harvard 44.00
- Mark Andrew, Penn 44.32
200 Breast
Alex Evdokimov completed his sweep of the breaststroke events with another new meet and pool record, winning the event by roughly two and a half seconds to grant Cornell the gold. The sophomore defended his freshman year title as well, demolishing his 2015 championship swim of 1:56.13. Three schools locked horns in an effort to claim the silver, with Princeton’s Byron Sanborn, Penn’s Colin McHugh, and Harvard’s Eric Ronda all finishing within nineteen hundredths of a second of each other. Sanborn managed to fend off his challengers for second place while McHugh touched out Ronda for bronze.
Top Eight:
- Alex Evdokimov, Cornell 1:53.56
- Byron Sanborn, Princeton 1:56.22
- Colin McHugh, Penn 1:56.36
- Eric Ronda, Harvard 1:56.41
- Jae Park, Columbia 1:57.04
- Shane McNamara, Harvard 1:57.05
- Jack Pohlmann, Princeton 1:57.87
- Wes Thomas, Penn 1:57.93
200 Fly
In his fourth A final appearance in this event over the course of his college career, Harvard senior Jacob Luna capped off his meet with a narrow victory in his signature event. Luna posted a lifetime best to take down Princeton’s Okubo, who raced fresh off a victory in the 200 back. Princeton’s Marco Bove led the race at the 100 but faded on the final 50 yards to touch just behind Okubo for third.
Top Eight:
- Jacob Luna, Harvard 1:44.27
- Corey Okubo, Princeton 1:44.44
- Marco Bove, Princeton 1:44.62
- Riley Springman, Brown 1:45.68
- Cole Buese, Princeton 1:45.83
- Joey Carbone, Yale 1:46.40
- Max Yakubovich, Harvard 1:46.52
- Zach Buerger, Princeton 1:46.55
Three Meter Diving
Jayden Pantel clinched the three-meter event to sweep the diving disciplines for Columbia, finishing a comfortable 44.80 points ahead of runner-up Jonathan Schlafer of Brown. Although both Princeton and Harvard placed two men inside the top eight, Princeton gained a slight advantage in this event through Noam Altman-Kurosaki‘s third place finish.
Top Eight:
- Jayden Pantel, Columbia 371.50
- Jonathan Schlafer, Brown 326.70
- Noam Altman-Kurosaki, Princeton 324.55
- David Pfeifer, Harvard 315.95
- Nathan Makarewicz, Princeton 313.00
- Bobby Ross, Harvard 310.95
- Brett Gillis, Dartmouth 293.10
- Kevin Fulton, Columbia 283.90
400 Free Relay
The Penn Quakers jumped out to an early lead thanks to Eric Schultz, who led off the relay a full three tenths faster than his winning time in the individual event. However, Princeton closed with a 43-low and two 42 splits to take the win in a conference record and NCAA A standard of 2:52.06. Penn held on for a comfortable second place touch, finishing over a second ahead of third-place Harvard.
Top Eight:
- Princeton 2:52.06
- Penn 2:53.10
- Harvard 2:54.35
- Cornell 2:56.43
- Columbia 2:56.70
- Yale 2:58.10
- Brown 3:00.88
- Dartmouth 3:00.98
Team scores after day 3:
- Princeton 1520.5
- Harvard 1499
- Penn 1213.5
- Yale 836
- Cornell 790
- Columbia 786.5
- Brown 672
- Dartmouth 491.5
Princeton and Harvard fought very hard for three days, but Princeton had the better swims and dives on the last day and, in the final three events had the higher scores/results and won the final event – the 400 free relay in an NCAA A cut time. That’s hardly “squeeking” by –
Terrific team competition and epic battle between Harvard and Princeton.
I don’t think any other team is going to get between these two for quite some time.
Schnur and Christian have done a terrific job and finished third for the second time in three years.
I also think they will likely outscore the other Ivy teams at NCAA.
it was an incredible meet. Harvard came well prepared and outperformed across the board. it was a shame one of the teams had to lose.
The two teams swam and dove as hard as they could and, together with Penn, who had a great meet, were the top 3 teams by far. But, we are very happy that the Orange/Black won!
In the 100 free section of this article it starts off saying “The 50 free and 200 free champions met in the middle…” and then goes on talking about Schultz and Hu-Van Wright, implying that they were champions of the 50 free and 200 free. By the way, thanks for the great coverage of Ivy Champs!
Oh gotcha, didn’t think of it at that level. Thanks, will adjust now.
Harvard’s Paul O’Hara won the 50 free, not Hu-Van Wright.
Drivin’ Wheel – I might be missing something, but I don’t see anywhere that says Hu-Van Wright won the 50 in this recap. Please point me to the right spot so I can make the correction if necessary.
Koya Osada in 200 back is listed as Princeton swimmer but actually swims for Harvard
Princeton never had a lead until after the 200 fly. They were down 115 points after the 2 back, but finished strong. Way to go tigers!
2 things (the first is more important than the other)
1. To the author: You listed Cole Buese as “Harvard” in the 200fly. He swims for Princeton.
2. How do these swimmers swim so fast with all the studying they have to do at their IVY LEAGUE schools?
Hard work and commitment
How do they swim so fast with all the studying at an Ivy League school? Let’s be honest here – That’s what makes the Ivy League the Ivy League – people who are more capable than average.
How do they go so fast and attend Ivy League schools? They are exceptional individuals – that’s what makes the Ivy League the Ivy League.