Men's swimming wins ‘old school’ battle

Same old result, but brand new method.

In its season opener Friday, the Penn men’s swimming team conquered visiting Columbia, 161-139.

“We’ve beaten Columbia in the past few years, but every time we beat them, we had an advantage,” Penn Coach Mike Schnur said. “We were coming off an invite, or we were wearing better suits then they were. Today was straight up two good teams battling, wearing old school bathing suits. And it was a great meet.”

The Quakers had eight first-place finishes, but it was their ability to have more than one swimmer place in each of the 16 events which provided the decisive advantage.

“The depth of our team really showed,” senior captain Kyle Loughran said.

Classmate and fellow captain James Fee echoed his statement.

“One of the key things was that we didn’t get very many sixth places, because they get no points. We always got that one-point fifth place.”

The Red and Blue swept both the 200- and 500-yard freestyle. In the 200 free it was Fee (1:43.58), Loughran (1:45.12) and junior Mike Tompkins (1:45.62). Fee also took first in the 500 (4:41.49), followed by freshmen Stephen Carroll (4:42.72) and Ryan Littlefield (4:44.01).

Carroll took first in the 1000 freestyle with a time of 9:35.06. He was again followed by Littlefield (9:39.95), who finished second. Fellow rookie Conor Blackwood also swam well in both backstroke events and the 200 individual medley.

“Our freshmen class really showed what they are going to be doing the rest of the season,” Schnur said.

Sophomore Brendan McHugh turned in a standout performance, continuing his success from last season. He placed first in both the 100 breaststroke (58:54) and 200 breaststroke (2:07.74).

The Quakers dominated from the diving board as well as from the blocks, as sophomore diver Jeff Cragg won both the one-meter and three-meter diving contests with scores of 312 and 317.93, respectively. Classmate Alex Marple placed third in the three meter (283.65).

“There’s no one in our League who can beat Jeff,” Schnur said. “And Alex getting third on the three meter was really important. … It’s great going into a meet knowing we are not only going to compete in diving, we are going to win.”

Ending the meet in exciting fashion, Loughran, along with classmate Chris Buck and sophomores Brett Gomes and Peter Amos, took the gold in the 200-freestyle relay.

“Our relay did an unbelievable job,” Schnur said. “That free relay wasn’t far off our pool record. That was one of the fastest unrested relays we’ve ever had.”

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