Men's Swimming and Diving 3/2/2024 9:40:00 PM

No. 22 Men’s Swimming and Diving Wins Seventh Straight Ivy League Championship

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – No. 22 Harvard Men's Swimming and Diving defended its Ivy League title on Saturday, winning its seventh in a row, at the 2024 Ivy League Championships. The Crimson led wire-to-wire, emerging victorious at its home facility -- Blodgett Pool.

In raising the Bob Kiphuth Trophy for a seventh consecutive season, Harvard extended its conference record for outright championships, while joining an exclusive list of Ivy teams to have won at least seven titles in a row (outright/shared). Princeton owns the record with nine straight championships (1984-92) and is followed by Yale (8 – 1963-70) and the Crimson (7 – 1978-84, 2017-pres.).

With the 2024 Ivy title secured, Harvard now has 30 total championships to pull to within one of Princeton for the all-time conference lead. The Crimson's 23 outright titles, meanwhile, breaks a tie with the Tigers atop the Ivy leaderboard.

Harvard finished the four-day league meet with 1,682 points, with Princeton (1,321), Yale (1,030) and Penn making up the upper portion of the team standings. Rounding out the rest of the field was Brown (861.5), Columbia (855), Cornell (798.5) and Dartmouth (390). The Crimson's point total was the highest by a champion since the 2017 Harvard team earned 1,705 points.

Prelims Notes

Will Grant and Anthony Rincon started the morning on a positive note, registering the top-two times in the 200 back. Grant finished in first with a time of 1:40.79, with Rincon posting a 1:41.09, which improved upon the fourth-best time in school history.
David Greeley (43.32), Marcus Holmquist (43.45) and Sonny Wang (season-best 43.46) went 3-4-5 in the 100 free. Oliver Pilkinton (44.02) and Harris Durham (season-best 44.05) qualified for the B-final, while Anders Aistars secured a spot in the C-final with a season-best 44.59.
Ben Littlejohn and David Schmitt finished as the two fastest swimmers in the 200 fly. Littlejohn posted the third-fastest time in program history, finishing in 1:42.57. Schmitt, as the runner-up, posted a 1:43.08. Aayush Deshpande (season-best 1:46.31) and Noah Brune (1:47.22) both qualified for the B-final.

Finals Notes

Cole Kuster won an entertaining 1,650 free to open the night session. The senior co-captain finished with a time of 15:02.52, which was the 10^th-fastest time in school history and nearly three seconds quicker than runner-up Aidan Wilson of Brown (15:05.30).
Simon Lamar finished the 1,650 in third place (15:05.35), with Shane Washart (15:08.59) and Noah Brune (15:16.75) coming in seventh and eighth, respectively. All three posted season bests.
Grant made history in the 200 back, becoming just the second Ivy men's swimmer to win four titles in the event (Dan Shevchik '03) after he finished with a time of 1:40.68 (third in school history). His performance matched his personal best, originally set in 2023. Rincon, meanwhile, finished in second place in the 200 back, putting up a time of 1:41.32.
Greeley continued Harvard's dominance on the night when he secured gold in the 100 free. The sophomore posted a winning time of 42.82, which was the No. 3 performance in school history. Holmquist (3^rd, 43.39) and Wang (6^th, 43.58) rounded out the Crimson contingent in the A-final. Pilkinton was the runner-up in the B-final with a season-best time of 43.78.
Schmitt put the finishing touches on the individual swimming events with a victory in the 200 fly. The first-year rallied to catch and ultimately pass teammate Littlejohn to finish with a time of 1:42.44. Littlejohn, meanwhile, touched the pad in 1:42.58.
Adam Wesson was edged for first place in the three-meter diving competition by Princeton's Aidan Wang. Wesson earned a season-high score of 392.75 only to be outdone by Wang's 409.55. The Crimson, which had four of the eight competitors in the event, had Raphael Tourette come in fifth (323.05), Luke Foster in sixth (322.05) and Denny Gulia-Janovski in seventh (311.65).
The 400-free relay of Littlejohn, Greeley, Deshpande and Holmquist capped the four-day event with another victory, this time finishing in 2:50.73 to set a Blodgett Pool record and defeat runner-up Princeton by nearly three seconds (2:53.45). The win secured a championships-sweep of the relays.