The Columbia men’s swimming and diving team rebounded from a poor start to finish fourth in this weekend’s Eastern Independent Swimming League championship. After the end of the tournament’s first day, the Lions sat in seventh place of the nine-team pool—ahead of Penn and Dartmouth—but managed to climb to as high as third place during the final day of competition.
The Columbia comeback was mounted behind a three-finalist showing in Saturday’s 200-yard backstroke. Gabe Schubiner placed fourth with a time of 1:49.13, ahead of fellow sophomore Darren Pagan and first-year Stephen Yang, who placed seventh and eighth, respectively. The Lions had two other individual finalists on the day—junior Hyun Lee in the 200-yard butterfly and junior Kevin Wakefield in the 100-yard freestyle. The team of Lee, Pagan, freshman Adam Clayton Powell, and junior John Dragelin finished sixth in the 400-yard freestyle relay, the final event of the tournament. Columbia finished just 11.5 points behind third-place Yale in the overall team standings. Host Harvard took home the title, as the depth of the team’s roster propelled the Crimson to finish over 300 points ahead of second-place Princeton.
The three-day tournament was held at Harvard’s Blodgett Pool and featured the best swimmers in the EISL. Competing teams included each Ivy League squad, as well as conference foe Navy. With their eighth title in the last 15 years, the Crimson preserved their perfect 2008 record and took home the Bob Kiphuth Trophy for the 20th time in team history.
Columbia senior and captain Henning Fog was proud of his team’s success among the league’s best in the face of Thursday’s adversity.
“Very concrete goals helped solidify our motivation after the first night of competition,” Fog said. “It was imperative that nearly all our swimmers make appearances at finals each night [on Friday and Saturday].”
Despite a pleasantly surprising performance from the team at this year’s meet, however, the Lions could potentially have finished higher, had it not been for a disqualification and minimum 40-point deduction after they were ruled to have jumped early in a leg of the 200-yard medley relay to open the second day of competition. The rest of Friday went much better, as Columbia surged to fifth place after touching second in the 800-yard freestyle relay to end the night. Wakefield and Lee also reached the finals in the 200-yard freestyle, with the former finishing second, just 0.14 seconds off the leader’s pace.
Junior Cedric Cheung-Lau swam to a fifth-place finish in the 400-yard individual medley, while in the 100-yard breaststroke, classmate Zach Glassman took fourth.
Rounding out the second day was junior Steve Ko, who placed seventh in the 100-yard butterfly. Columbia had five top-eight finishers on Friday, compared to just two in the meet’s first day of competition.
According to Fog, though the loss of points to start off the day could have been discouraging, the Lions used the ruling to boost the squad’s morale.
“The disqualification hurt, but bad things happen,” Fog said. “What defines you as a swimmer—and as a person, anyway—is not the hardship, but the way you react to it. We turned an admittedly frustrating setback into fuel for the rest of the meet, something tremendously positive. Third would have been great, but I’ll take a fourth place given the season we’ve had over an easy third any day of the week.”
Overcoming obstacles is nothing new for this season’s team. Over the course of the 2007-2008 campaign, Columbia has endured eye surgery, illness, and even a hand injury to its captain to limp through the regular dual-meet season. The now-healed Fog was pleased to see his Lions accomplish what only they knew they were capable of.
“I think this past weekend speaks volumes about our character and perseverance,” he said. “No one was expecting much from us, at least outside our own ranks. On paper, we were one of the slowest teams entered. But we overcame those obstacles, and we did it with style to spare.
“I could not be prouder of our team,” Fog added. “From bottom to top, everyone contributed in a meaningful way. It was a team effort through and through.”