Record-breaking individual finishes not enough to beat Ivy rivals

Despite the array of school records and personal bests that Yale men's swimming has garnered, the Bulldogs bid farewell to their undefeated season with a third place finish behind Harvard and Princeton on Sat., Feb. 3 and Sun., Feb. 4 in the fastest dual meet in the country.

JULIA TIERNAN/YH

The Bulldogs remain upbeat about the outcome of the meet, citing a lack of rest time and pointing to several strong individual performances as rallying points. "At this point in the season, I'm more concerned about how everyone is racing than whether we win the meet. On the other hand, I thought we raced really well, and I'm surprised our score was so low," Head Coach Frank Keefe said.

Captain George Gleason, TC '01, the team's leader in and out of the pool, had his best meet ever, claiming three first-place finishes while rewriting the Yale record books. The senior, who represented the Virgin Islands in the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games, set the school record in the 400-meter IM and broke his own record in the 200-freestyle. With two solid third-place finishes, Greg Palumbo, TC '03, broke the Yale record in the 500-meter freestyle and improved his chances of qualifying for the NCAA championships in March.

Despite Palumbo's record-breaking performance in the 500, he finished nearly three seconds behind Harvard's John Cole, who also defeated Palumbo in the 1,000-freestyle. Harvard's Michael Im '01 dominated the backstroke events, while Princeton's Garth Fealey '03 and Jessie Gage '03 each won two events for the Tigers. The diving team aided Yale's cause, as Chris Birrer, DC '02, narrowly defeated Harvard's Enrique Roy '04 in the one-meter event.

"Going into the meet, we knew it would take a remarkable effort to come away with a win," Gleason said. "I think we got that performance from several swimmers, but the swimmers from Harvard and Princeton stepped up to our challenge and turned in incredible efforts of their own."

The losses to Harvard and Princeton were the first two of the season for the Bulldogs (9-2), and revealed weaknesses masked by the their relatively easy early season schedule.

This late in the season, members of the team are at their peak physical state, and little would be gained from further conditioning. However, nearly every member of the team could benefit from refining the technical aspects of his stroke. Yale swimmers suffered from comparatively slow wall turns at the HYP meet, and struggled in the shorter sprint races. "The team has been training very hard the entire season, and the short rest before this meet certainly hurt our chances," Keefe stressed. "As we prepare for the rest of the season, we'll cut back on the workload, and everyone should regain their strength in time for the conference championship."

Yale competes in its final dual meet of the season on Sat., Feb. 10 and Sun., Feb. 11, as the team travels to Columbia to battle the Lions and the Brown Bears. If the Bulldogs maintain the effort and attitude shown at the HYP meet, they should have little trouble in dispatching this weekend's weaker Ivy League opponents. With the ECAC championship only three weeks away, and the Easterns and NCAA championships looming on the horizon, the team hopes to peak at the right time. While Yale is not an extremely deep team, its talent at the top is exceptional, and the Easterns emphasize superb individual talent above the breadth of talent within a team.

"We haven't gotten a full rest in a long time, and at the HYP meet we were physically exhausted," Alex Nash, BK '04, who turned in a solid performance despite competing in his event for the first time, said. "We should be rejuvenated for Easterns, and hopefully we can come back and beat both Harvard and Princeton." Photo by Julia Tiernan. Graphic by Hyura Choi.

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