Men’s 400 IM Prelims
Harvard freshman Christian Carbone led the way out of the prelims in this 400 IM with a 3:49.76 with a very balanced swim and good splits across all four strokes. Given that this swim was only a tenth faster than he’s been this season, I’d expect him to have a better one in him for finals.
He’ll need to, as Dartmouth’s Nejc Zupan will be right next to him in lane 5 after a 3:50.04 prelims swim. We saw Zupan slow-play prelims of the 200 IM on Thursday before breaking out a new Ivy League Record in finals. He’s got about three-and-a-half seconds to go to get this record, but expect it to take at least a 3:47 to win this race. Princeton, who only got one A-finalist in this race to Harvard’s two, will certainly be rooting for him with a tight team battle raging.
Columbia’s Kevin Quinn is the third seed in 3:51.05. Prior to this year, the 21-year old redshirt sophomore hadn’t swum the event since high school, where he was just a 4:07 at his best. Even this season, he still didn’t break four minutes until just now. Columbia has shown over the last two weeks the impressive ability to squeeze a lot of potential out of swimmers who were just “above-average” in high school.
Men’s 100 Fly Prelims
Brown’s Tommy Glenn is the defending champion in this 100 fly, and early returns indicate that he’s the odds-on favorite to do so again after his 46.86 prelims swim. The second seed is Columbia’s David Jakl with Princeton’s Kaspar Raigla 3rd in 47.67.
Glenn’s biggest challenge in finals will be to knock another few tenths off of that time to shore-up a second-straight NCAA Championship bid in the race. Anything in the 46.6 range should make him really confident about his standing headed into next week’s selection.
Princeton had a chance to make up a little bit of ground in this 100 fly, but could only match Harvard’s one swimmer in the A-final and one swimmer in the B-final.
Men’s 200 Free Prelims
Columbia’s Dominik Koll took his second poll position of the meet with a 1:36.51 coming out of prelims. This time, the 28-year old will try to hold on to the spot and fight off the second-seeded Chris Satterthwaite (1:36.99) of Harvard. The two are coming from opposite directions (Koll from the distance, Satterthwaite from the sprints), so keep an eye on a move from the Columbia swimmer in the last 50 yards.
Princeton freshman Sandy Bole took the 3rd seed in 1:37.06, and he joins a big group of swimmers at 1:37-lows who will be fighting for podium spots tonight.
Men’s 100 Breaststroke
Even with the veteran Chuck Katis from Harvard hanging around, the top three seeds in this men’s 100 breaststroke were all freshmen, led by Penn’s Kyle Yu in 54.05. Close behind him are Princeton’s deadly-duo Byron Sanborn in 54.58 and Teo D’Alessandro in 54.58.
Katis isn’t on a full rest for this meet, with his NCAA qualification already locked up, but as the lone Harvard swimmer among four Princeton A-finalists, the team will be counting on him to get down to at least a 53-mid tonight.
Men’s 100 Backstroker
Another race, and another top seed for Columbia, as Omar Arafa just snuck under the 48-second barrier in prelims with a 47.98.
Though there’s a whole digit between them, he will by no means feel comfortably ahead in the final. The top 7 swimmers are only separated by four-tenths of a second, which is minute given many of the prelims-finals drops we’ve seen in this meet. Princeton again can pick up big points on Harvard, and maybe even take the lead, tonight with this race as they have 4 A-finalists and Harvard not even a single entry.
Up/Downs
Ups are indicative of a swimmer in the A-Final, who must finish 1st-8th, and Downs are indicative of a swimmer in the B-Final, who must finish 9th-16th.
On day 2, the defending champions from Princeton are fighting back, with 5 more A-finalists than their rivals at Harvard. Those 5 extra finalists could rapidly close the gap between them and the Crimson headed into Friday’s final session. There is no diving on Friday, however there are two relays: in the 200 medley, Harvard is seeded first, and in the 800 free, Princeton is a 9-second favorite by seed.
Expect this meet to be down to fewer than 20 points in either direction after tonight.
| Ivy Men’s Day 2 | Up | Down |
| Princeton | 12 | 4 |
| Columbia | 8 | 5 |
| Harvard | 7 | 5 |
| Yale | 3 | 10 |
| Dartmouth | 3 | 5 |
| Brown | 3 | 4 |
| Penn | 3 | 3 |
| Cornell | 1 | 4 |