Diving buoys Lions to another strong showing 

Susie Lee : Spectator Staff Writer 

The blink of an eye. The length of your pinky finger. That's how close the men's swimming and diving teams came to upsetting Yale at the Lions' home opener last Friday. In his fourteenth season as Head Coach, Jim Bolster characterized Friday's performance as "one of the best dual meets I've seen at Columbia." 

The home pool advantage and the support from the crowd heightened the atmosphere of the meet. The cheering from friends and family in the stands during the post-Thanksgiving dual "really psyched the team up and created more motivation. It brought up the intensity level and adrenaline flow," Bolster said. 

Despite the 157-143 loss, junior Chris Ferris said, "The team is very upbeat. Our spirit has never been better in my three years here." 

The Lions won nine out of the 16 events against Yale, but the Bulldogs' depth allowed them to rack up critical points with third and fourth-place finishes, which added up to deafeat the Lions. 

"I thought we swam exceptionally well. The bottom line is that it was a great meet," Bolster said. "On paper they were supposed to beat us pretty easily. It would've been a huge upset had we beaten Yale. But dwelling on the fact that we didn't beat them would overshadow the guys' tremendous performances." 

The list of incredible swims started with the first event. "The team really pulled together from the first relay on," senior distance freestyler Mike McCosker said. 

The Lions' team of Matt Schultz, Joe Zdrilic, Gered Doherty, and R.J. Griffith opened Friday's meet by smoking Yale in the 200 medley relay with a time of 134.94, just short of the school record. Last Friday the diving team proved that its new-found league dominance is here to stay. Mark Fichera and Daniel Brown swept the diving events by going one-two respectively on the one and three meter springboards. 

"We showed a lot of consistency and that is one of the most important traits of diving," Brown said. 

Sophomore Peter Leong was on fire in both butterfly events. Leong won the 200 fly with a lifetime best of 152.76, and took first in the 100 fly with a 51.74. 

"I was really pumped for this meet," Leong said. "I wasn't going to let those Yale guys beat me again, becasue they beat me last year in both events." 

The story of the meet, however, lay in what happened after the first-place finisher hit the touchpads. Exemplified in the 200 fly was a fraction of the blink that kept Columbia from a big win. In an amazing swim, Gered Doherty placed fourth with a 52.24. Yale clinched a crucial third in 52.22. Two hundredths of a second that could have gone either way in this case handed more points over to Yale. 

Columbia blazed through Yale in the sprint events by winning both the 100 and 50-yard freestyle. Tri-captain R.J. Griffith won the 50 free in a time of 21.33, and Gered Doherty claimed victory in the 100 yard free in 46.85, a fraction faster than his lifetime best (which he swam shaved and tapered). 

More of the blink that separated Yale from Columbia was revealed in the post first-place finishes of the sprint freestyle events. First-year Joe Zdrilic took fourth in the 50 in a time of 20.80. Yale squeezed into second and third place with 20.73, and 20.75. 

Another key victory for the Lions came in the 200-yard breaststroke, where sophomore Joe Rudler flattened the Bulldogs with a time of 209.52. 

Yale out-touched Columbia and took a few first-places that could have gone either way. Senior Mike McCosker took second in the 200 freestyle with a 144.5, his best time unshaved, and two seconds faster than his performances last weekend. McCosker was just .1 seconds away from first place. 

Again in the 500 freestyle McCosker took second place with a time of 4:43.6, three seconds faster than last week, and just three-tenths of a second behind the Bulldog who snatched first. 

"The main goal was personal improvement within a racing situation," McCosker said. "The meet was not supposed to be very close, but the fact that [we made it so close] shows how well we swam." 

Other laudable second place finishes by Columbia which complete the eye-blink within were the 100 yard backstroke and 100 yard breaststroke events. Joe Rudler finished second in the 100 breast with a 59.5, one-tenth behind Yale. Matt Schultz siezed second in the 100 back with a 53.5, two-tenths of a second away from Yale. 

"On paper, Yale was a stronger team than we were. Yet we concentrated on our individual races which enabled us to remain competitive," tri-captain Lous De Leon said. 

More evidence of the Lions' strength was seen in tri-captain Matt Gilman's 400 IM performance. Gilman has been sidelined all fall with a serious shoulder injury. He rejoined the Lion line-up against Yale and clinched third place, posting Columbia's best time in the 400 IM this season. 

"Personally, I am glad to be back in the water, and glad that I could finally score some points for the team," Gilman said. 

The Lions closed the meet as impressively as they opened it. They wanted to bring the meet down to the final relay, but despite their collective efforts, a win was not in reach by the last event. This fact did not deter them from going all out and displaying the competetive fire that separates this year's team from squads of years past. 

Columbia's winning 200-freestyle relay team of Gered Doherty, Joe Zdrilic, Sharif Khaleel, and R.J. Griffith tore through Yale in 124:04, peeling a pool record off the books in the process. Doherty's 21.5 split was faster than any of his times last year, and Griffith's anchor leg split of 20.34 hammered the last nail into the coffin, burying Yale's relay. The Lions' 200 free relay team also shaved a second off their time that broke UMass' pool record last weekend. 

"The team stuck together and fought hard to the very end. Yale had much more depth than us and we still scared the crap out of them, which is the next best thign to winning," Gilman said. 

Next weekend the Light Blue travels to Cornell to take on a Big Red team that has soundly beaten it for the last two years. 

"If we keep swimming [like we did against Yale] we are going to beat Cornell," Leong said