After a brief pause for turkey and stuffing, the Columbia men’s swimming team dives back into the pool this weekend for the three-day Bucknell Open—its final competition before the winter break.

The Lions will be competing against six other schools—Rider, Princeton, Brown, La Salle, Syracuse, and Bucknell—to be the invitational’s top competitor. But there is plenty of competition standing in the way of first place.

Brown and Princeton, the other two teams representing the Ancient Eight, both look to challenge Columbia in its quest for success. Thus far, the Tigers remain undefeated on the season. Princeton opened up the season at the Big Al Open at home for an un-scored first trial before moving on to defeat soundly both Cornell and Penn. The Tigers drowned Cornell 191-104 and the Quakers by an even bigger margin, 193-102.

Princeton’s most deadly swimmer against the Lions will likely be sophomore Jonathan Christensen. In the dual meet against the Quakers and the Big Red, Christensen won three events as well as contributing to the 200 medley relay team’s victory. Personally, Christensen swept the 100 breaststroke, 200 breaststroke and the 200 individual medley.

Christensen is scheduled to compete in all three of these events this weekend and he has the fastest times thus far in all three. He will also swim the 200 backstroke in which he is ranked 17th.

Fellow sophomore and reigning Ivy 500 freestyle champion Travis McNamara will also be a fierce competitor. McNamara won the 500 and 1000 freestyle against Cornell and Brown and is set to compete in the 200, 500, and 1650 freestyle this weekend. He is ranked first in the 500 and 1650, and sixth in the 200.

Brown comes into the open with an overall record of 2-2. In its one and only duel in the Ancient Eight so far, the Bears had a resounding 180.5-117.5 victory over Dartmouth two weeks ago.

Columbia will have to look out for the Bears’ Ryan Kikuchi and Conor Carlucci in the lanes. Kikuchi is seeded fourth in the 100 backstroke, just .21 seconds behind Columbia’s Adam Powell, and second in the 200 backstroke, two spots ahead of Light Blue senior Darren Pagan. Kikuchi will face Pagan again in the 200 individual medley and sophomore Chester Dols in the 400 individual medley.

Carlucci is seeded second in the 100 breaststroke while Columbia’s top competitor will be senior Ross Ramone, whose best time so far is less than a second off of Carlucci’s. He will face Ramone again in the 200 breaststroke where the two have identical seed times.

The Light Blue has its own high hopes for some individual victories. Powell has the fastest seed time in both the 50 and 100 freestyle. Sophomore Bruno Esquen and Pagan have the first and third fastest times to date in the 100 butterfly, and with plenty of backup from other swimmers the pair has potential to earn Columbia big points. Esquen will also team up with Robert Eyckmans and Nick Barron to represent the Lions well in the 200 butterfly.

The Bucknell Open will be three days of fierce competition for the Lions to prove themselves to Ivy foes as well as to the other teams. It is Columbia’s last chance to leave a mark on the swimming world before the year ends and the season picks up again in January after a six-week break.