The first road trip of the season is never easy.
Heading into the trip, Penn men’s swimming and diving hoped to build on its first win of the season, but the tri-meet turned out to be a big stumble in the Quakers’ stride.
In Ithaca, Penn fell to host Cornell 171-129 and suffered a blowout loss to defending Ivy League champions Princeton 232.5-67.5.
The Quakers started the meet on the wrong foot, struggling in the 200-yard medley relay. The team of sophomore backstroke/freestyle specialist Eddie Jin, sophomore breaststroke specialist Watson Nguyen, senior butterfly/breaststroke specialist Alex Fu, and junior freestyle/backstroke/butterfly specialist Liam Campbell began the meet with a fourth place finish with a time of 1:27.90. Princeton's relay squads asserted its dominance by touching the wall in first and third place while Cornell grabbed second place.
“We got out-touched for some races and it added up,” Nguyen said. “We’re usually better as the season goes on … you can’t overdo this first invitational.”
On a day when points felt scarce, the Red and Blue picked up the pace during the individual events.
Jin delivered an early highlight by battling down the stretch to claim third in the 200-yard free with a time of 1:36.95. With a difference of just 0.14 seconds separating him from first place, Jin held out against the relentless pace driven by Cornell backstroke/freestyle specialist Pietro Ubertalli and Princeton’s individual medley/butterfly specialist Arthur Balva.
Nguyen secured Penn’s sole first place finish in the meet. He touched in at 53.65 in the 100-yard breaststroke, 0.23 seconds ahead of Cornell breastroke specialist Haihan Xu. For Nguyen, the win reaffirmed the importance of precision.
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“I’m better at the 100 and 50,” Nguyen said. “You need to have everything right in a shorter race. If you’re not used to little things like the walls and the depth of the pool, then that can mess you up.”
Junior individual medley specialist Peter Whittington maintained a steady presence by claiming second in the 200-yard breaststroke before returning later in the meet to tie for second in the 200-yard individual medley at 1:49.80, matching Princeton individual medley/freestyle specialist Lucas Strøbek to the wall.
Freshman individual medley/butterfly specialist Henry Guo also delivered under pressure. With a time of 1:46.99, Guo placed second in the 200 fly — breaking up what would've been a one-two punch by Princeton.
Campbell added to Penn’s score in the sprint events, taking third in the 50-yard freestyle. Senior backstroke specialist James Curreri later powered through the 500-yard freestyle, earning third as well.
The 200-yard backstroke event was a weak spot for the Quakers, as all but one of Princeton’s and Cornell’s athletes finished ahead of Penn’s duo in the event.
On the boards, freshman diver Jack Handelman finished in seventh while sophomore diver Victor Dang followed in eighth in the three-meter dive. Dang later returned with a sixth place finish in one-meter dive with a score of 238.60.
To wrap up the meet, Penn’s 400-yard freestyle relay team of Jin, Campbell, senior freestyle specialist Ryan McGuirk, and Fu rounded out in third place. The Tigers and Big Red took first and second place, respectively.
“Even though we lost… [this meet] gives us a good place to build off of going into our mid-season meet this week at Princeton,” Whittington said.
Penn men's swimming and diving will next travel to race at Big Al Invitational at Princeton University this weekend, where the team will have another chance to pick up pace against familiar opponents.
