Princeton University Athletics
Players Mentioned
Hasbani Heroics Not Enough For Men's Swimming & Diving To Sweep At Harvard
February 04, 2006 | Men's Swimming and Diving
Feb. 4, 2006
Complete Results
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - Despite two individual wins and two second-place finishes from Meir Hasbani, the Princeton men's swimming and diving team split the annual H-Y-P tri-meet this weekend. The Tigers fell to host Harvard, 193-160 , but defeated Yale handily by the score of 254-99.
Both Princeton and Harvard left Yale during the first evening of the competition. Princeton held a 135-51 lead after Friday night, while Harvard led 131-55. The only drama left was between the last 33 Ivy League champions, and Harvard held a slim 99-87 lead in that race.
The Crimson opened the competition with a win in the 200 free relay, although Princeton placed three teams in the top four to earn plenty of early points. The top Princeton team of Will Reinhardt, Alan Fishman, Mike Baity and Doug Lennox came in at 1:21.54, less than one second ahead of Harvard's winning time of 1:20.93.
Harvard would build on that victory with wins in the next three events. David Guernsey (1:39.65) defeated Princeton's Ryan McCabe (1:40.73) in the 200 free, and senior David Cromwell won the 100 back in 47.90. Princeton took third in that event when Mike Zee finished in 49.95, and then Princeton finished 2-3-4 (Seok Jun Lee, Alex Chiang and Mike Ott) in the 100 breast.
Princeton finally touched the wall first in the fifth event, the 200 fly. Multiple-time Eastern champion Meir Hasbani set a B-qualifying time of 1:46.36 to defeat Harvard freshman Bill Jones by more than three seconds. Senior Will Reinhardt built on the momentum by winning one of his signature events, the 50 free. Another multiple-time Eastern champion, Reinhardt's B-qualifying time of 20.29 topped Yale's Alex Righi by .16 of a second. Hasbani picked up another second-place finish in the 200 IM when he finished in 1:49.60. Another B-qualifying time, it wasn't enough to top Harvard's Geoff Rathgeber's time of 1:47.78.
Sophomore Stuart Malcolm placed third in Friday's diving competition, the 1-meter event. Malcolm scored 269.45, but Harvard's Dan Rybalko ran away with a winning score of 332.90. His Crimson teammate, Eric Lynch, won the 1650 free in 15:28.00, topping Princeton freshmen Robert Griest (2nd, 15:41.40) and Taylor Gutsche (3rd, 15:42.25), as well as junior David Ashley (4th, 15:45.49).
Friday ended with the 400 medley relay, which Harvard won in 3:18.59. Princeton's team of Zee, Lee, Hasbani and Lennox placed second in 3:20.58.
Saturday opened in similar fashion, as Harvard won the 200 medley relay in 1:29.00, while Princeton finished second (Zee, John LaMonaca, Ryan Becker and Reinhardt; 1:30.74) and third (Fishman, Lee, Travis Knop and Mike Baity; 1:33.29).
Hasbani made sure there wouldn't be a long wait for Princeton's first individual win of the session. He topped Rathgeber (3:54.52) and teammate Sami Mardem-Bey (3:57.09) to win the 400 IM in a B-qualifying time of 3:51.17. Yale got its first win one event later, as freshman Righi topped a mostly young field to win the 100 free in 44.34. Princeton's top finisher was also a freshman, Lennon, who placed third in 45.28,
Cromwell got Harvard back on track by winning the 200 back in 1:44.93, but Lennox came right back and won the 100 fly in 48.67. Three swimmers finished within one second of Lennox, including Princeton junior Knop, who placed third in 49.35.
Harvard freshman Eric Lynch won the 500 free in 4:29.62, and teammate Dan Rybalko held off a strong showing from Malcolm in the 3-meter diving competition. Rybalko won with 313.35 points, but Malcolm, an NCAA Zone qualifier, finished close behind with 307.50 points.
The final showdown between Rathgeber and Hasbani went the Crimson's way, as the Harvard sophomore topped the Tiger junior in the 200 breast. Rathgeber finished in 2:02.89, while Hasbani went in 2:04.40. Fellow Princeton junior finished Mike Ott finished third in 2:04.68.
The final relay went to Harvard, as its `A' team won the 400 free in 3:01.82. Princeton's team of Reinhardt, Baity, Will Schaffer and Mike Carter finished second in 3:03.51.
The Tigers will get a second shot at Harvard March 2-4 at the EISL championships in Long Island, N.Y. Before that, Princeton will honor its senior class next Saturday afternoon when it hosts Columbia at 1 p.m.