M. Swim Takes Fourth at EISL

The entire season for the Columbia men's swimming and diving team culminated in their fourth-place finish at the EISL Championships this past weekend.

The EISL Championships pit all the Ivies against each other for three days of intense competition, with all the participants on an equal playing field. The Lions had the goal of taking third or higher this year to maintain or improve upon their streak of three years of third place, but instead they fell to fourth, losing to Yale by five points.

Individually, the Lions recorded several career-best times, breaking five school records while posting at least five NCAA cut times.

Head coach Jim Bolster saw the weekend as a success despite the drop to fourth overall in the league.

"It wasn't for lack of any effort or heart-it was a tense battle all weekend," he said. "The meet was exciting between Cornell, Yale, and us. It went down to the last event. We had a shot at taking it, but we needed to come up with an eight-point advantage with the relay, and Yale's anchor, a dominant swimmer in the league, contributed to us coming up short in points in the final relay."

The seniors gave strong performances, with Michael Nelson breaking two school records in the 100- and 200-meter breaststroke, Luke Fitzpatrick earning three lifetime bests, and Tobin White leading the team in scoring with admirable performances in the relays, anchoring four of the five.

"Yale scored a lot in the diving events, close to 80 points," Bolster said. "If you look at it from a strictly swimming standpoint, we outswam them. But it's not just swimming. We were very aware that our streak of finishing third was in jeopardy, we were intent on finishing third. When I step back and look at it, it wasn't because we didn't swim well. The performances were great, so it's hard to be too disappointed. Yale just swam really well."

White added that the team morale was good after this weekend, even more positive that last year. The swimmers stayed focused all year and saw the reward over the championship weekend.

"It's hard to lose third by five points, and it would have been sweet to be third all four years that I have been on the team." White said. "But I would take this year's fourth place over last year's third place any day, since I think we swam really well this year. Usually there is a post-swimming depression but there is less of that this year, people are more content with their performances."