Columbia vs. Penn vs. Army West Point
- Results
- Hosted by Army West Point
- Friday, November 4th
- 25 yards
- Dual meet format
Final Team Scores – Men
Columbia 152, Penn 148
Columbia 200.5, Army West Point 99.5
Penn 199, Army West Point 99
Army West Point hosted a double dual meet with Ivy League foes Columbia and Penn on Friday; while it was a friendly for the Black Knights, the meetup served as the conference kickoff for the Lions and the Quakers. After three hours of back and forth, the meet came down to the final event, and in the end it was a margin of .09 that would give Columbia the victory.
Columbia, who finished sixth at the 2016 Ivy League Men’s Championships, 427 points behind third-place Penn, won both relays and the diving, which made a big difference in the end. Jayden Pantel swept the 1-meter and 3-meter diving events, as he had at Ivies last year. Columbia’s Cole Stevens, Jae Park, Terry Li, and Hank Gullick won the medley relay (1:30.82), while Army West Point (Josh Sembrano, Joe Daniels, Kevin Doo, and Evin Rude) edged Penn for second place by .08. The final event, the 400 free relay on which the outcome of the meet depended, was a thriller. Penn got off to a half-second lead with Kevin Su’s 44.99 leadoff. Li touched at 45.43, handing off to Columbia freshmen Nianguo Liu and Gullick, both of whom swam 44.7s to go up by 8/10 heading into the anchor. Kevin Frifeldt kept the Lions out front with his 44.40, despite a hard-charging anchor from Penn’s Thomas Dillinger (43.74). Columbia touched in 2:59.25 to Penn’s 2:59.36.
Other Columbia event winners included Brian Tsau (1000 free), Park (100 breast over Colin McHugh of Penn), Michal Zyla (200 back -and in a tie with Army West Point’s Sembrano- the 100 back), and Li (200 fly). Liu was second in the 200/500 free and third in the 100, while Frifeldt was runner-up in both the 50/100 freestyles and placed third in the 100 fly, and Park took second in the 200 breast and 200 IM.
Penn counted among its event winners Su (200 free), Hunter Brakovec (200 fly), Dillinger (50/100 free), and Mark Andrew (500 free, 200 IM). Grant Proctor was runner-up in the 200 back, Michael Wen was runner-up in the 100 fly and third in the 200 IM.
Army West Point got wins from Sembrano (tied with Zyla in 100 back) and Ty Dang (200 breast). Tom Ottman was runner-up in the 1000 and third in the 500, Rude was third in the 200 free and fourth in the 50 free, and Peter Mikheyev was runner-up in the 200 fly.