Cornell Makes History with Win Over Princeton

ITHACA, N.Y., November 19. AFTER defeating Harvard for the first time since the 1985-86 season last weekend, the Big Red men's wimming and diving teams went even further back in history in topping Princeton 160-140 on Saturday afternoon at Teagle Pool.

The win was the first over the Tiegrs since claiming a 71-42 triumph over Princeton during the 1983-84 season. Cornell also topped Penn 223-77 to remain unbeaten in dual meet competition at 5-0.

Cornell improved to 5-53-1 all-time against Princeton in a series dating back to 1910 thanks to victories in 12 of the 16 events.

The 200 medley relay of Wes Newman, Dave McKechnie, Brad Newman and Brad Gorter got Cornell off to a flying start, setting a pool record with a swim of 1:31.15, while the B team of Phil Baity, Nick Campbell, Jackson Wang and Mike Balint finished third in 1:33.65, just .24 behind Princeton's runner-up squad, to score valuable third-place points.

Wes Newman opened the Big Red's winning run by taking the 200 free in another pool record time, swimming a 1:38.68 to better the Teagle record by .31 seconds. Baity then captured the 100 back (51.10), while Max Royster (52.55) and Brad Newman (53,17) placed third and fourth, respectively. McKechnie claimed his first win of the afternoon in an individual race with a solid 56.26 swim in the 100 breast to comfortably touch the wall two seconds ahead of his closest challenger.

Mike Smit hit an NCAA "B" cut in the 200 fly, holding off Princeton's Meir Hasbani, who also hit the B time, with a swim of 1:47.75. Next up was the 50 free, and Gorter (20.74) and Balint (20.86) captured the top two spaces in that event to build on the Big Red's lead.

Chris Donahue was the top diver in the 1-meter for Cornell, placing third with a score of 287.55, placing third behind a pair of Tiger freshmen, but he later came back to take second in the 3-meter with a 322.40.

Continuing with the swimming, Smit and Gorter placed 1-2 in the 100 free with tiems of 45.33 and 45.62, respectively, while Baity captured firsy in the 200 back in 1:51.35, the seventh straight individual Big Red win. That grew to eight with McKechnie's three-secodn win in the 200 breast (2:05.05), then to nine and 10 with consecutive triumphs by Wes Newman in the 500 free (4:30.98, another pool record) and Mike Smit in the 100 fly (Cornell's fifth pool record of the meet in 49.16). Smit's record swim came with a .07 second win over Princeton's Doug Lennox, who also went under the existing pool standard.

The Tigers took a 1-2-3 sweep in the 200 IM, meaning to claim the victory the Big Red needed to place at least second in the final event to guarantee a win. That wasn't even in question, as Cornell relay teams had a 1-2-3 sweep of their own in the 200 free relay, with a sixth pool record set by junior Brad Gorter and seniors Mike Balint, Dave McKechnie and Mike Smit (1:22.05) to give the upperclassmen their first win over the Tigers in their career.

The Big Red will take two weeks off from competition before visiting Binghamton on Saturday, Dec. 2, at 1 p.m.

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