Men's Swimming Fights for Fourth Place

The Columbia men's swimming team entered the 2007-2008 season looking to build upon its winning potential from the previous year. Throughout the dual-meet season, the Lions received solid performances from their veteran core as well as from several freshmen who emerged to fill the holes left by the seven departed seniors.

The year started off slowly for Columbia, which opened its season with tough Ivy League matchups against perennial powerhouses Yale and Harvard. The Lions followed up consecutive conference losses with two straight nonconference victories against Army and Fordham, behind great swims by sophomore Darren Pagan and junior Hyun Lee­—a pattern that would continue throughout the season.

Columbia ended the first half of the season with a loss to Penn, bringing its conference record to 0-3. The Lions headed to Hawaii over winter break needing to rest and refocus. Senior captain Henning Fog took the trip as an opportunity to rehabilitate a fractured arm that had sidelined him for several weeks.

The Light Blue began the second half of the season with a nonconference victory against Bucknell. The team, however, still could not win a meet against an Eastern Independent Swimming League opponent, falling to Cornell a week later. Columbia would not record a conference victory until Feb. 2, when the team hosted Brown at Uris Pool. Despite finishing the regular season tied for seventh in the league, the Light Blue ended on a high note, defeating winless Dartmouth to establish some momentum heading into the EISL Championship.

The tournament started off poorly for the Lions, who found themselves in seventh place in the nine-team pool after the first day of the meet. The final day of competition, however, would see Columbia surge ahead in the standings, at one point occupying third place. The comeback was mounted behind a three-finalist showing in the 200-yard backstroke, as sophomore Gabe Schubiner finished sixth, ahead of teammates Stephen Yang and Pagan. Lee also made it to the final in the 200-yard butterfly, while Kevin Wakefield made the cut in the 100-yard freestyle.

Columbia finished the meet in a respectable fourth place—just 11.5 points behind third-place Yale.
After the meet, Fog expressed his satisfaction with the surprising effort turned in by his team.

"No one was expecting much from us, at least outside our own ranks," Fog said. "On paper, we were one of the slowest teams entered. But we overcame those obstacles, and we did it with style to spare."

After four years swimming in Morningside, Fog and the three other seniors on the team will graduate on a high note, thanks to clutch performances up and down the Lions' roster.

"From bottom to top, everyone contributed in a meaningful way," Fog said. "It was a team effort through and through. I could not be prouder of our team."