2014 Men’s Ivy League Championships
- Dates: Thursday, February 27 – Saturday, March 1, 2014; prelims 11:00 am, finals 6:00 pm
- Location: Blodgett Pool, Cambridge, Mass (Eastern Time Zone)
- Defending Champions: Princeton (results)
- Psych Sheet: Available
- Live Results: 500 free │ 200 IM │ 50 free
- Live Video: Available
- Championship Central
200 Free Relay
With four Crimson sprinters in the A final of the 50 free, one would have expected that Harvard’s 200 free relay would be the team to beat. And indeed, they opened the meet with a resounding victory from the mostly-senior squad of Griffin Schumacher (19.79), Oliver Lee (19.35), Danny Crigler (19.49), and Chris Satterthwaite (19.31), who broke the pool record (1:19.31, Harvard, 2008) and the Harvard school record (1:18.06) with a 1:17.94, and qualified for NCAAs while they were at it.
500 Free
With all that momentum, a home crowd behind them, and three swimmers in the A final, you would have thought Harvard might sweep the 500 free podium. But Chris Swanson of Penn and Brian Hogan of Yale robbed the Crimson of that opportunity.
Top-seeded Aly Abdel Khalik of Harvard took it out fast; by the 200 he was 1.5 seconds ahead of his prelims time and about a second ahead of Swanson and Hogan. As Abdel Khalik began to fade Swanson and Hogan were descending. In the end, it was Swanson with the win in 4:18.31, Hogan just behind in 4:19.53, and Abdel Khalik in third with 4:21.88. Swanson crushed Penn’s school record of 4:21.82 which he had set in 2013.
200 IM
Princeton’s Teo D’Alessandro dropped just 12/100 from his prelims time but that’s all that was needed to win the 200 IM and break the Blodgett Pool record. D’Alessandro and defending champion and Ivy record-holder Nejc Zupan of Dartmouth were locked in a stroke-for-stroke battle from the start. Both shot out of the gates with a 22-mid fly leg. By the back-to-breast turn D’Alessandro was ahead by .30. Zupan made up some time on the breast leg but that was about all he had in his tank. D’Alessandro pulled away and closed with a 25.8 to win with a Blodgett Pool record time of 1:45.45.
In the meantime, Princeton teammates Marco Bove (1:46.53) and Byron Sanborn (1:46.61), who had been in sixth and eighth place, respectively, at the 100, came up with incredible second-halves and made it to the wall before Zupac for second and third. Both Bove and Sanborn split 30.0 breasts and 25.7 frees to pass the rest of the field in the last 100. Sanborn out-touched Zupac by .01 for third.
2014 Ivy League champion in the 50 free, Penn sophomore Eric Schultz. Archive photo courtesy of Penn Athletics.
50 Free
Penn’s Eric Schultz surprised the Harvard trio of Schumacher, Satterthwaite, and Lee with a 19.70 to win the 50 free. Having already lowered his own Penn record in the morning with his 19.94 prelims swim, Schultz took another .24 off and got the win by .02 over Harvard’s Schumacher. Satterthwaite took third.
One Meter Diving
Harvard diver Mike Mosca. Archive photo courtesy of Harvard Athletics.
Defending champion Mike Mosca of Harvard won the one-meter diving with 369.45 points. Brett Gillis of Dartmouth finished second, with a school record score of 361.15. Harvard senior Joe Zarrella was third and Princeton’s Michael Manhard, fourth.
400 Medley Relay
You couldn’t have ended the first night of Ivies on a more exciting note. The top four teams all finished under the pool record, and the top two, under the Ivy mark. Dartmouth’s James Verhagen was the first backstroker to the wall, in 47.29. Princeton’s Michael Strand touched at 47.41, and Harvard’s Jack Manchester at 48.25. Dartmouth maintained their first-place position after Zupan’s breast but Princeton’s Sanborn had narrowed their lead and Harvard was sneaking up after Eric Ronda’s 53.20. Then Harvard’s Jacob Luna split a 46.71 fly to overtake Dartmouth and catch up to Princeton’s D’Alessandro. Satterthwaite brought it home for the Crimson, beating Princeton’s Jeremy Wong 42.26 to 42.78 for the win.
Photo of Harvard’s Chris Satterthwaite courtesy of Harvard Athletics.
Final times: Harvard 3:10.42 for the new meet, school and pool record; Princeton 3:10.82 with the top time in its program history, and Dartmouth 3:12.49. At 3:13.06, Penn also finished under the old pool record and set a school record.
Standings
1. Harvard University 505
2. Princeton University 400
3. University of Pennsylvania 315
4. Yale University 243
5. Dartmouth College 231
6. Columbia University 222
7. Brown University 189.5
8. Cornell University 170.5