Princeton University Athletics
Princeton University
Big Al Day 3
Players Mentioned
Men's Swim/Dive Shows The 'Wright' Stuff In Wire-To-Wire Big Al Title
December 07, 2015 | Men's Swimming and Diving
Junior En-Wei Hu-Van Wright spent his weekend rewriting the Princeton record book and leading the Tiger men's swimming and diving team to an impressive wire-to-wire championship at the 2015 Big Al Open.
One night after breaking the school mark in the 100 back, Hu-Van Wright set the Princeton record in the 100 free in the final session of the fall-closing Big Al Open. Princeton won the meet with 1100.5 points, while Pittsburgh finished second with 818 points.
The victory also serves as the dual meet wins over both Brown and Dartmouth, which moves the Tigers to 4-0 in the Ivy League (dual scores will be calculated afterwards).
Hu-Van Wright won the 100 free in 43.05, more than a second faster than the rest of the field and .04 of a second faster than the previous record, held by 2008 Olympian Doug Lennox '09. He was one of four Tigers in the final — Ben Schafer (3rd, 44.62), Teo D'Alessandro (4th, 44.81), and Alex Lewis (7th, 45.41) added big points for Princeton — but his race was against history.
And he won again.
The night opened with junior Sam Smiddy taking third in the mile in 15:30.62, while freshman teammate Murphy McQuet took fifth in 15:37.70. That set the stage for an underclassman showdown in the 200 back, and neither disappointed. Reigning NCAA qualifier Corey Okubo won the event in 1:43.50, though freshman Cole Buese (1:43.86) pushed him the whole way and took runner-up honors by more than one second.
Senior Jack Pohlmann took second in the 200 breast in 1:59.81, while Okubo added a second-place finish in the 200 fly in 1:46.05. Buese (4th, 1:46.83) and Schafer (7th, 1:50.45) also reached the A final.
The meet ended in style, as the team of Hu-Van Wright, D'Alessandro, Lewis and Mackrel won the 400 free relay in 2:55.74, more than three seconds faster than anybody in the field.