M. Swimming Coasts Despite Scaled-Back Lineup

The Harvard men’s swimming and diving team returned to its winning form with a sweep of Dartmouth (6-6, 3-6 EISL) and Cornell (6-4, 5-4) on Saturday at Teagle Hall in Ithaca.

Despite starting a lineup that underutilized the squad’s top swimmers and had many racing outside their best events, the Crimson (7-1, 6-1) never was in danger of losing, defeating the Big Red 131-110 and the Big Green 137-94.

Cornell defeated Dartmouth 136.5-104.5.

Sophomore diver Danil Rybalko led the way for Harvard, comfortably capturing both the one-meter and the three-meter events.

Despite the varied lineups, the Crimson had little difficulty winning the more valuable relay events, taking first in both the opening 400-yard medley relay and the closing 400-yard freestyle relay.

Aside from Rybalko’s pair of victories, freshman Jonathan Loch brought home the only other individual-race win for the Crimson with his first-place time in the 100-yard freestyle, defeating Dartmouth’s Ryan Goldhahn by 0.08 seconds.

Both Cornell and the Big Green took first in four events.

But though Harvard was not necessarily winning each race, the Crimson took several spots in the top five on multiple occasions to cement the victory.

Junior Andrew Krna, freshman Jon Voith and sophomore Bill Cocks swept second through fourth in the 200-yard freestyle, negating the gains made when Dartmouth’s Yale Fillingham had touched the wall first only seconds before.

Rob Payne’s first-place finish for Cornell in the 200-yard butterfly was similarly wiped out by a 2-3-4 finish by sophomore Stephen Norberg junior Cameron Moccari and Cocks.

Harvard returns to the water this Saturday at Blodgett Pool against Pennsylvania.