Behind a dominant performance that included 12 event victories and a sweep of all five relay events, Harvard captured its first Ivy title since 2014. The Crimson own 24 Ivy championships all-time, including three over the past 10 years.
The Crimson tallied 1705 points to defeat Penn (1335) by a 370-point margin. Columbia (1208) and Yale (1115.5) also eclipsed the 1,000 point plateau, while Cornell (858.5), Brown (796) and Dartmouth (561) rounded out the seven-team field.
Harvard also swept the individual swimming accolades. Freshman Dean Farris claimed the High Point Swimmer of the Meet award with 96 points, while senior Jack Manchester earned the Career High Point Swimmer with 296 points. Columbia junior Jayden Pantel was the Rick Gilbert High Point Diver of the Meet with 64 points this year, while Brown senior Jonathan Schlafer was the Ron Keenhold Career High Point Diver with 158 points.
Yale’s Kei Hyogo, who posted the Blodgett Pool record times in the 500-yard freestyle and 1,000-yard freestyle, captured his the Ivy title in the 1,650-yard freestyle in yet another pool record time of 14:47.01. The Harvard duo of Brennan Novak (14:54.06) and Logan Houck (15:00.97) placed second and third in the race—just as they did the in 1,000-yard freestyle final Friday.
In the 200-yard backstroke, Harvard’s Jack Manchester lowered his own meet record to 1:40.52 in the preliminaries and then claimed his second Ivy title in the event with a 1:40.76 in the finals to best Columbia’s Michal Zyla (1:43.87) and Harvard teammate Daniel Tran (1:44.44).
Harvard’s Dean Harris added another Ivy title to his mantle by posting a pool record and NCAA A cut of 42.06 in the 100-yard freestyle final. Harris’s Harvard teammate Ed Kim (43.70) out-touched Yale’s Aaron Greenberg (43.75) to claim second.
The 200-yard breaststroke proved to be one of the most exciting events of the meet, as Cornell’s Alex Evdokimov claimed his third-straight Ivy title in 1:53.72—.10 seconds ahead of Harvard’s Shan McNamara (1:53.82). McNamara’s Harvard teammate Eric Ronda placed third (1:57.36) to give the Crimson a 2-3 finish in the event.
Max Yakubovich of Harvard—who has won the past two 100-yard butterfly crowns, including the 2017 title Friday night—earned the butterfly sweep with a 1:45.27 to take the 200-yard butterfly championship. The Columbia duo of Shane Brett (1:45.69) and Terry Li (1:45.77) touched just behind Yakubovich to give the Lions a 2-3 finish.
For the second-straight year, Columbia’s Jayden Pantel swept the diving events, posting a 389.45 to take the three-meter diving title, ahead of Harvard’s Bobby Ross (337.05) and David Pfeifer (302.40).
In the 21st and final event of the meet, Harvard put the icing on the cake by completing the relay sweep—with an NCAA A cut and pool record time of 2:52.10 in the 400-yard freestyle relay. Yale (2:53.91) and Penn (2:54.02) claimed the second and third place slots in the event.
