Princeton University Athletics
Princeton University
Ivy Day 1
Players Mentioned
Steady Performance Helps Tiger Women To Solid Start At Ivy Championships
February 19, 2016 | Women's Swimming and Diving
Day 1 Results l Live Video Stream l Live Results
Hang around. That was the goal on Day 1 of the Ivy League Championships. Swim well, and stay in the race entering Day 2.
Mission accomplished.
Despite having the fewest swimmers competing among the top three contenders Thursday, the Princeton women's swimming and diving team put itself in position to make a run at its 23rd Ivy League championship. Harvard, which had a monster effort on the 1-meter boards, leads the 2016 Ivy League Championships with 444.5 points. Yale, the undefeated dual meet champion, currently holds second with 428 points, while Princeton finished third with 400.5 points.
No other team is within 100 points of that trio, so the expected three-team battle for Ivy supremacy — being held at DeNunzio Pool and streamed live on the Ivy League Digital Network — is officially on.
Princeton may not have had a “wow” moment Thursday — the Tigers' best finish of the night was third, which it accomplished in four of six events — but it took the steady approach. Of its 13 competitors (10 swimmers, three divers), 12 reached either their respective championship or consolation finals, and none finished below 18th.
That wasn't the case for either Yale or Harvard, which will have fewer swimmers than Princeton left to compete over the final two days.
Still, both Harvard and Yale showed that they were ready to match Princeton's 2015 effort — to go into somebody else's pool and come away with a title. Yale won both relays and the 50 free, while Harvard took wins in the 200 IM and the 1-meter diving. The Crimson actually had five of the top eight in the 1-meter event, a major reason it holds the lead after Day 1.
As for Princeton, its top highlights Thursday included:
• third-place finishes for the 200 free relay (1:31.50) and the 400 medley relay (3:39.31)
• senior Sada Stewart's third-place finish in the 200 IM (1:59.63)
• senior Elizabeth McDonald's third-place finish in the 50 free (22.78)
• freshman Monica McGrath's fifth-place finish in the 500 (4:47.58)
• freshman Carolyn MacFarlane's sixth-place finish in the 1-meter (265.95 pts)
Princeton had five of the Top 10 finishers in the 200 IM, as both Isabel Reis and Beverly Nguyen joined Stewart in the final. Olivia Chan and Alisabeth Marsteller added a 1-2 finish in the B final, while Claire McIlmail won the B final in the 500.
Friday's preliminaries will begin at 11 am, and they will feature the 400 IM, the 100 fly, the 200 free, the 100 breast and the 100 back. The 1-meter prelims will also be held Friday afternoon, and finals in the 1000, the 200 medley relay and the 800 free relay will also take place during the night session.