Princeton University Athletics
Princeton University
Cornell
.png&width=84&height=84&quality=100&type=webp)
Players Mentioned
Men's Swim/Dive Claims Sweep With Relay Win; Orr Reaches 300-Win Milestone
November 22, 2014 | Men's Swimming and Diving
By the end of Friday's Ivy League opener, it wasn't Rob Orr's 300th victory that caused all of the drama in DeNunzio Pool. It was his 301st.
The dual between Princeton and Penn had already been determined, but the Tigers still needed to post enough points in the 400 free relay to get through a hard-fought victory over Cornell. A win would do the job, as would a second- and third-place finish.
Just to make sure, Princeton went 1-2. The team of Teo D'Alessandro, Ben Schafer, Julian Mackrel and Harrison Wagner won the event in 2:59.22, while the quartet of Jeremy Wong, Connor Maher, David Paulk and Sandy Bole bested Cornell's top relay by less than half a second to secure the win on a special night for Princeton men's swimming and diving.
Orr, the winner of 21 Ivy League championships over his 36-year Princeton career, reached the 300-win milestone during a day when the Tigers opened their 2014-15 Ivy League season with wins over both Cornell (160-140) and Penn (192-107). The Tigers are now 3-1 on the season, and will take a week off of competition before splitting up in early December for the 2014 AT&T Winter National Championships and the Brown Invitational.
Princeton ended the day with a relay win, and it began it the same way. The quartet of Michael Strand, D'Alessandro, Maher and Wagner won the 200 medley in 1:28.38.
Sophomore Sam Smiddy, the reigning Ivy League champion in the 400 IM, opened the individual competition with a strong showing in the 1000; his time of 9:16.08 was less than two seconds off the time of Penn's Chris Swanson, the reigning Ivy champion in the event.
D'Alessandro put Princeton back in the win column with a strong showing in the 200 (1:38.23), while David Paulk posted a career best in the event (1:39.35) to take second. Following a runner-up finish by Strand in the 100 back (49.60) and a third-place finish by Byron Sanborn in the 100 breast (55.71), freshman Corey Okubo notched his first DeNunzio win by going 1:47.89 in the 200 fly. Okubo later added a second-place finish in the 200 back in 1:47.62.
Wagner knocked off the reigning Ivy League champion to win the 50 free in 20.31, and senior Michael Manhard earned a win in the 1-meter diving competition with 304.25 points. Manhard would complete the double later in the meet by winning the 3-meter event with 308.40 points.
Paulk and Smiddy followed their earlier strong performances by going 3-4 in the 500, with Paulk taking third in 4:32.36.