Princeton University Athletics
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Men's Swimming/Diving Stands Second To Host Harvard After Day 1 Of EISLs
March 06, 2008 | Men's Swimming and Diving
A second-place finish for junior Will Schaffer and a third-place EISL debut for freshman Geoff Faux highlighted Princeton's first day at the 2008 EISL Championships, held at Blodgett Pool in Cambridge, Mass. The nationally-ranked Harvard Crimson holds an 83-point lead on the second-place Tigers with two days remaining.
Princeton opened with an NCAA B-cut performance in the 200 free relay. The team of Faux, Michael Carter, Michael Baity and Doug Lennox finished in 1:20.10, less than a second behind Harvard's winning team. The Tigers didn't produce a championship finalist in the 500 free, although Robert Griest did earn 16 team points with an 11th-place finish in 4:29.20.
Schaffer has had the unfortunate distinction of facing Harvard All-America senior Geoff Rathgeber over the years. Schaffer posted an NCAA B-cut time of 1:48.57 to place second, but Rathgeber finished almost three seconds faster with an A-cut time of 1:45.62. It turned out to be a strong event for Princeton, which placed three swimmers in the final. Junior Christopher Quemana placed fourth in a B-cut time of 1:49.10, while freshman Colin Hanna finished seventh in a time of 1:50.36. Sophomore Jon Hartmann won the consolation final in 1:50.77.
Faux finished third in his individual debut with a B-cut time of 20.14 in the 50 free final, while Carter placed eighth in a time of 20.71.
Sophomores Dan Dickerson and Mike Papageorge did a good job reaching the championship finals of the 1-meter diving competition. Unfortunately, neither was able to make a strong challenge for the title. Dickerson placed seventh with 263.30 points, while Papageorge finished eighth with 255.60. Princeton concluded the evening with a sixth-place finish in the 400 medley relay. The team of Lennox, Easton Chen, Brett Lullo and Carter finished in a time of 3:19.56.
Friday's preliminaries will begin at 11 a.m., and the championship finals will begin at 6 p.m. The event schedule for Friday will be the 200 medley relay, the 1000 free, the 400 IM, the 100 fly, the 200 free, the 100 breast, the 100 back, the 3-meter prelims and the 800 free relay.
All of Thursday's times can be seen by clicking on the link above.