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Yale Men Hold Third at Ivy League

The Yale Bulldogs held onto their third place position at the 2015 Ivy League Men's Swimming and Diving Championships on Friday. The Elis have scored 764 points, behind Princeton's 1,026 and Harvard's 874.5. They are 29.5 points ahead of the fourth-place team, Penn.

Three Yale swimmers competed in the 1,000-yard freestyle final, which was held 90 minutes before the other finals started at 6:00 p.m. Junior Brian Hogan finished second, currently Yale's highest finish in an individual event. His time of 8:54.32 was 20 seconds faster than his seed time, and just 1.44 slower than his meet record-breaking race at last year's Championships. His average 100-yard split was a remarkable 53.43. It could easily have been a winning race, if Penn junior Chris Swanson had not led the field with a historic swim— he broke the conference record with a time of 8:49.55. Sophomore Ben Lerude also had a huge race for Yale, taking fifth place with a time of 9:05.52. He bested his seed time by 17.40. 

The Bulldogs took seventh place in the 200-yard medley; Yale's team of freshman Shawn Nee, senior captain Andrew Heymann, sophomore Aaron Greenberg, and junior Victor Zhang finished the race 1:28.83. 

Freshman Kei Hyogo gave a precocious performance in the 400-yard IM, finishing fourth with a Yale record time of 3:46.95. He opened up the race with a blazing fast 52.04 backstroke leg, and closed it out with a 51.90 freestyle split for the final 100-yards. He beat the previous record, set by Hogan in 2014, by 1.86. Nee finished in 12th place for the Bulldogs, just ahead of junior Kevin Stang, who came in 13th place. Lerude, racing on little rest after his 1,000-yard freestyle, still  recorded an impressive time of 3:59.67 to finish 15th. 

Senior Mike Lazris, one of the most versatile swimmers in Yale's class of 2015, achieved the second top-10 Ivies finish of his career in the 100-yard butterfly. He came in seventh place with a time of 48.12, ahead of senior Alwin Firmansyah in 12th place and Greenberg in 18th. 

Rob Harder added to the impressive showing by Yale's senior class with a third-place finish in the 200-yard freestyle. His time of 1:36.05 was just .02 off his prelims time, which was a career-best. Freshman Jonathan Rutter won the B final with a time of 1:36.79, and junior Victor Zhang finished .72 afterwards to take eleventh place. 

On Friday, two of the fastest breaststrokers in Yale's history pushed each other to new heights. Senior Ronald Tsui beat Heymann by .01 in the prelims and finals of the 100-yard breaststroke, setting new Yale records both times. Tsui finished sixth in finals with a record time of 54.28, and Heymann finished just behind him in seventh place, beating his previous Yale record by .39. 

Sophomore Alex Schultz had a breakout race in the 100-yard backstroke, finishing seventh with a 48.26 time in the A final. It was a major improvement from his 19th place finish at the 2014 Championships. Lazris and Nee were the next swimmers from Yale to finish, taking 14th and 15th place, respectively.

The Bulldogs closed the meet with their best relay result of the meet thus far. The 800-yard relay team of Hogan, Harder, Rutter and Hyogo finished second with a time of 6:26.94, smashing the previous Yale record of 6:32.38 that Harder and Hogan helped set in 2013. 

The final day of Ivies will begin with 200-yard backstroke prelims at 11:00 a.m. on Saturday. Finals begin at 6:00 p.m. A schedule of events and live results can be found here .

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