While college swim teams all over the country have already begun hosting scrimmages or intrasquad meets, the Ivy League’s swimming and diving season does not officially begin until October 1. This week, Yale head coach Tim Wise, the Robert J. H. Kiphuth Director of Men’s Swimming and Diving, released his men’s 2014-15 schedule (available here).
The Bulldogs have made several changes to their program of the last several years. Most notably they have upped the level of non-conference competition. “This season’s schedule is our program’s most ambitious venture since I became head coach in 2010,” said Wise. “As we have worked to build competitiveness within the program, we have also sought to challenge ourselves with regard to our opponents.”
This is evident from the Bulldogs’ very first outing: a scrimmage against Johns Hopkins in Baltimore on October 25. The Division III Blue Jays finished third at Bluegrass Mountain Conference championships and fourth at NCAAs (only 1.5 points out of third place).
Next will be a scored meet against neighboring Southern Connecticut State on November 7, followed by the home opener against Ivy foe Columbia on November 15, one of only three meets in Yale’s Kiphuth pool.
From November 20-23, the team will compete at the Bucknell Invitational in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. After that, Yale will host Boston University and Rutgers on Dec. 6, just before the winter recess.
After returning from winter training in Florida, the Bulldogs will begin a full January slate of away meets. They will face Cornell on January 7, Dartmouth and Penn in Hanover, N.H. on January 10, and Penn State from January 16-17. The Nittany Lions, who finished 17th at 2014 NCAAs, will provide a nice tune-up before the Harvard-Yale-Princeton (“HYP”) tri-meet in Cambridge, Mass over the weekend of January 31-February 1.
“Adding a Big Ten program like Penn State to our schedule sends a clear message about the level we aspire to compete at,” said Wise. He added, “All of the Ivy League teams certainly deserve our full attention. There are no easy meets in our conference.”
On February 7, the Bulldogs will host Brown for the final meet of the regular season. Then the team will have more than three weeks to prepare for the Ivy League Swimming and Diving Championships, which will be held in Princeton, N.J. from Feb. 26-28.
Last on the schedule is an outing to the NCAA Division I Championships in Iowa City on March 26-28, 2015. The Bulldogs were represented at 2014 NCAAs by distance freestyler Brian Hogan, who was the first Eli to be invited to the meet since 2009. “Getting back to the NCAA Championships last season was a big step forward for our program,” Wise said. “Now that we have achieved that goal we hope to have more representation and get into the scoring column.”
2014-15 Yale Men’s Swimming and Diving Schedule
| Date | Opponent |
| Oct 25, 2014 | at Johns Hopkins |
| Nov 7, 2014 | at SCSU (Diving @ Yale) |
| Nov 15, 2014 | Columbia * |
| Nov 21-23, 2014 | at Bucknell Invitational (Lewisburg, Pa.) |
| Dec 6, 2014 | Boston University w/ Rutgers |
| Jan 6, 2015 | at Cornell (Diving only) * |
| Jan 7, 2015 | at Cornell * |
| Jan 10, 2015 | at Dartmouth w/ Penn * |
| Jan 16, 2015 | Penn State @ Piscataway, N.J. |
| Jan 17, 2015 | Penn State (w/ Rutgers women) @ Piscataway, N.J. |
| Jan 31-Feb 1, 2015 | at Harvard w/ Princeton * (Cambridge, Mass.) |
| Feb 7, 2015 | Brown University * |
| Feb 26-28, 2015 | at Ivy League Championships (Princeton, N.J.) |
| Mar 9-11, 2015 | at NCAA Zone Diving (Piscataway, N.J.) |
| Mar 26-28, 2015 | NCAA Championship @ Iowa City, Iowa |
* Ivy League opponents
Adapted from a press release courtesy of Yale Athletic Communications.