Tigers Get Several Strong Performances vs Ranked Duo In Final Tuneup Before Ivies

Friday, November 10

Charlottesville, Va.

5:00 PM

Princeton University

Virginia Invitational (Day 1)

Photo by: Beverly Schaefer

Tigers Get Several Strong Performances vs Ranked Duo In Final Tuneup Before Ivies

November 11, 2017 | Men's Swimming and Diving

COMPLETE RESULTS

In its final tuneup before the 2017-18 Ivy League season, the Princeton men's swimming and diving team competed against two of the nation's best teams and found several strong individual efforts. Princeton fell 259-111 to 17^th-ranked Louisville, and the Tigers fell 255-109 to 23^rd-ranked Virginia.

Freshman Levy Nathan got the men's team off to an exciting start Friday, as he cut more than five seconds off his seed time and placed fourth in the 500 free in 4:31.26. Senior Corey Okubo followed with a fourth-place finish of his own, as he took fourth in the 200 IM in 1:50.00. Senior Alex Lewis placed sixth in the 50 free in 20.85.

Okubo opened Saturday with another strong effort in the 400 IM (fifth, 3:58.54), while Ben Schafer (48.65) and Zach Buerger (49.09) had another 4-5 finish in the 100 fly. Murphy McQuet went 1:39.02 to finish fifth in the 200 free, while freshman Corey Lau went 56.82 for seventh in the 100 breast. Alex Lewis gave Princeton one final Top-5 finish in the 100 back (49.85), and the 800 free relay of Buerger, Murphy McQuet, Charles Leibson, and Cole Buese ended Friday with a third-place finish in 6:39.34.

One of the standout performances of the weekend came Friday from freshman diver Colten Young, who had back-to-back runner-up finishes in both the 3-meter (327.20) and 1-meter (311.10) events. His 1-meter finish was only .5 behind the winning score posted by Louisville's Daniel Fecteau.

The final session of the meet took place Saturday morning and the Tigers put forth more solid efforts. The freshman trio of Nathan (15:38), Sam Tarter (15:58) and Arthur Markley (16:05) displayed some excellent endurance and toughness in the 1650 freestyle. The Tiger trio of Wade O'Brien, Cole Buese and Sam Cuthbert showed grit by posting season-best times in the 200 backstroke on the way to fourth-, fifth-, and sixth-place finishes.

In the third event of the session, Tiger sprinters Schafer, Brown & McQuet had a solid showing in the 100 freestyle by placing sixth, seventh and eighth with near season-best times. Lewis posted the fastest time of the session for the Tigers at 45.38 for an impressive first race on the young season.

The final two individual events of the session included the 200 breaststroke and 200 butterfly. Junior Tyler Lin led the way for the Tigers in the former with a time of 2:03.58, while upperclassmen Okubo (1:49.00), Buese (1:49.55) and Buerger (1:49.90) paced the Tigers in the butterfly.

To cap off the meet, the Tiger quartet of Brown, McQuet, Schafer and Feiler raced well in the 400 freestyle relay to earn a third place finish.

The Tigers can now turn their attention to the Ivy League season, which opens Friday afternoon in Philadelphia in a tri-meet against both Cornell and Penn. Diving will open the meet at 1:30 pm, while swimming events start at 3 pm.