Senior Thomas Dillinger won the 200-yard individual medley and took home a second-place finish in the 50 and 100 freestyle in the final tri-meet of the year for Penn men's swimming.
Credit: Son NguyenAnd just like that, the final Ivy League tri-meet of the Quakers' 2018-2019 season is in the books.
Penn swimming and diving made the trip up to Cambridge, Mass. to compete against Ivy League foes Harvard and Brown this Saturday. In true tri-meet fashion, the competition was fierce and proved a great opportunity to gauge how the Quakers stack up against the rest of the conference.
The men (7-2, 4-2 Ivy) finished with a split, handily defeating Brown 174.5 to 125.5 but falling victim to undefeated in-conference Harvard by a 198-102 score. The women (2-7, 1-6) continued to struggle in Ivy League competition, as they lost to both Brown, 218-82, and to Harvard, 222-78.
There were a number of fast performances on men’s side, especially from some of the older swimmers.
Senior Thomas Dillinger won the 200-yard individual medley, finishing with a time of 1:49.14. He also nabbed two second-place finishes in the 50 and 100 freestyle, with times of 20.49 and 44.72, respectively. This is promising for Dillinger, who is gearing up for his final Ivy League Championships appearance in February.
Sophomore Sean Lee took first in a pair of races for the Red and Blue, winning both the 100 and 200 butterfly with times of 48.19 and 1:46.47, respectively.
Senior Mark Andrew continued his dominant streak, winning the 100 breaststroke in a time of 55.29 seconds. He took third in the 200 breaststroke, finishing behind sophomore Boris Yang, who finished second with a time of 2:02.48.
The Red and Blue men’s diving squad had two top-three finishes in Cambridge. Junior John-Michael Diveris finished third in the one-meter dive with a score of 251.4, while senior Andrew Bologna grabbed third in the three-meter by scoring 276.05.
The women were dominated by Harvard and Brown, two teams in the midst of strong seasons. On the bright side, the Red and Blue were able to have several individuals secure top-three finishes — placements that are vitally important when looking forward to championship season.
Junior Serena Xue had a standout meet with second- and third-place individual finishes in the breaststroke events. In the 100 she took third with a time of 1:06.38, while in the 200 she placed second with a time 2:20.33, which was a full second faster than her seed time.
Freshman Catherine Buroker collected yet another top-three finish in the 1000 free, finishing with a time of 10:17.84. She finished just strokes behind the pair of Harvard freshmen who took first and second. Senior Erin Kiely and junior Kaitlin Stearns also came in fourth and fifth for the Quakers, respectively.
Freshman Hannah Kannan made an impact in the 100 backstroke, finishing in third place with a time of 57.21.
The Quakers will be back in the pool next Saturday in West Chester, Pa. to compete in their last regular season meet before gearing up for the Ivy League Championships in Providence, R.I. at the end of February.
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