The Princeton men’s swimming and diving team, who had not yet won the annual double dual meet against rivals Yale and Harvard in three years, made a big statement on Friday night. The Tigers jumped out to lead Harvard by 130.5-55.5 and Yale by 135-51 through ten events at the end of the first session. Harvard was ahead of Yale 139-47.
Princeton won all but one event in their quest to earn the seniors their first-ever HYP title. The exception came from Yale sophomore Kei Hyogo, who cruised to a 15:10.36 victory in the 1650 over teammate Brian Hogan (15:20.81) and Princeton’s Sam Smiddy (15:18.03).
Freshman Murphy McQuet won the 200 free with 1:35.81, a lifetime-best by 2.5 seconds. Runner-up was senior teammate Sandy Bole (1:36.91), who just edged Harvard’s Jack Boyd. Freshman Scott Bole, Sandy’s brother, was Yale’s top finisher with 1:38.68.
En-wei Hu-Van Wright, a junior at Princeton, won both the 100 back (47.12) and 50 free (19.90). Senior teammate Andrew Helber (47.28) finished second in the back, ahead of Koya Osada (48.65) and Daniel Tran (49.07) of Harvard and Shawn Nee (49.38) of Yale. In the 50 free, Harvard freshman Sebastian Lutz (20.12) was second, while Victor Zhang (20.67) was Yale’s fastest sprinter.
Princeton swept the top three places in the 200 fly (Corey Okubo 1:44.18, Cole Buese 1:45.34, and Marco Bove 1:47.10) and 100 breast (Jack Pohlmann 54.28, Brett Usinger 54.62, and Byron Sanborn 54.79). The Tigers were the top five to the wall in the 200 IM behind Teo D’Alessandro (1:46.73), Okubo (1:48.12), Usinger Tyler Lin, and Liam Karas.
Yale’s fastest 200 flyers were Hyogo (1:49.91) and Jake Goldstein (1:51.12); Harvard’s were Max Yakubovich (1:48.18) and Sava Turcanu (1:48.32). Shane McNamara led the Harvard charge in the 100 breast with 55.16, while Kendrick McDonald went 55.83 for Yale.
The double dual meet continues on Saturday at DeNunzio Pool in Princeton, New Jersey.
Wayne zhang from Yale also won the 3m diving against Princeton. So we won two events not one on the first day.