Jan. 7, 2006
Final Stats
ANNAPOLIS, Md. - Harvard totaled 11 event victories on its way to a posting a 170-130 triumph over the Navy men's swimming and diving team, Saturday afternoon in Lejeune Hall. The loss was Navy's first on the season (9-1), while the Crimson, the defending Eastern Intercollegiate Swimming League champion and the 24th-ranked team in the country, improved to 3-1 on the year.
"It was a pretty solid meet for us," said Navy head swimming coach Bill Roberts. "We posted a number of times which were close to regular-season bests, which is very pleasing with this being our first meet after the end of our winter training trip. We really stepped up against the defending league champions."
Navy recorded five event victories on the day, with Joe Smutz (Sr., Marriottsville, Md.) the lone athlete to post a pair of wins. Smutz, who recorded NCAA 'B' cut times in both sprint freestyle events the last time he took to the Lejeune Hall pool in a meet, won the 50 free in a time of 23.07 and the 100 free with a 51.15 clocking. The wins improved his combined record in the two events to 16-2 on the year.
Additional Navy swimmers to post a victory on the day were Andrew Thorn (So., Elizabethtown, Pa.), who recorded a 1:55.03 to win the 200 freestyle by seven-tenths of a second, and Kevin Mukri (Jr., Silver Spring, Md.), who won the 100 backstroke in a time of 57.62. For Thorn it was his third victory in four 200 freestyle races this year, while Mukri remained undefeated in the 100 back this season.
As expected, some of the closest competition of the day took place in the diving well as it featured a dual between Navy's Kevin Teague (Jr., Lexington, Ky.) and Harvard's Dan Rybalko. The Harvard senior topped Teague two years ago on both boards, while Teague swept both events from Rybalko during last year's meet with the Crimson.
The duo would end up splitting the two boards this year, with Rybalko winning the one meter by 42 points and Teague winning the three meter by 32 points.
Teague's loss on the one meter ended a 37-event dual-meet winning streak and was just the fourth dual-meet loss of his career. He bounced back to post the victory on the three meter and improve his career dual meet record to 80-4.
Navy will continue with its EISL season next weekend when the Mids compete in a double-dual meet against Cornell and Yale in Ithaca, N.Y.
