Princeton Holds Onto 17-Point Lead At Women’s Ivy League Champs

Lisa Boyce of Princeton relaxing before the prelims.

PROVIDENCE, Rhode Island, February 20. PRINCETON University won three events during the first night of action at the women’s Ivy League Championships to build an early lead at the three-day meet. Thanks to two relay wins and an individual victory by Lisa Boyce in the 50 free, the Tigers hold a 17-point lead over Harvard, 441-424.

Ivy League Press Release

Princeton holds a slim lead after the first night of competition at the 2014 Ivy League Women’s Swimming and Diving Championships at Brown University’s Katherine Moran Coleman Aquatic Center.

Thanks in large part to Lisa Boyce, the Tigers hold a 17-point lead after the day of competition. Boyce had three wins on the day, winning the 50 freestyle and then swimming legs on the 200 freestyle relay and the 400 medley relay.

Princeton started the night off with the first win, grabbing the 200 freestyle relay. The Tigers’ Boyce, Nikki Larson, Elizabeth McDonald and Morgan Karetnich logged a time of 1:30.91, 17 one-hundredths ahead of Harvard.

Yale’s Eva Fabian won the 500 freestyle, edging out Penn’s Shelby Fortin by 12 one-hundredths of a second. Fortin was in search of her fourth straight title in the event. Fabian became Yale’s first Ivy champion in the event since Suzanne Heizer in the mid-1990s.

Columbia’s Alena Kluge impressively won the 200 IM. She swam the only sub-two minute time in the morning trials and did the same on Thursday night, winning in a time of 1:58.74. In the process, though, Princeton had five swimmers in the final and grabbed 123 points led by Olivia Chan’s second-place finish.

Boyce won her third straight 50 freestyle title, touching the wall for Princeton in 22.44. It is the fourth straight year and 11th time all-time that a Tiger has won the sprint title.

Yale’s Lilybet MacRae became the first Bulldog since 2003 to win the one-meter diving and did so in impressive fashion. Nailing her final dive for a score of 52.00, she finished at 310.85, the second-highest score by a diver at the Ivy League Championships under the current scoring format (since 2001).

Harvard closed the gap on Princeton, though, in the diving. The Crimson had three in the first five finishers and five of the top nine to close to within nine points heading into the 400 medley relay.

The Crimson had a two-second lead on the field early in the relay, but Princeton and Columbia both chipped away to pull nearly tied heading into the freestyle leg. The Tigers, however, had Boyce on their leg and she pulled away from the field, winning the relay with a time of 3:38.33 and giving the Tigers a 17-point lead heading into the second day’s action.

Princeton has 441 points through six events. Harvard is second with 424, followed by Yale at 351. Columbia and Penn are one point apart for fourth and fifth.

TEAM SCORING

1. Princeton 441
2. Harvard 424
3. Yale 351
4. Columbia 244
5. Penn 243
6. Brown 191
7. Cornell 180
8. Dartmouth 158

Results For: Women’s Ivy League Championships, Day One

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