Sports in brief

CRIMSON SWIMMERS COMPETE AT NATIONALS IN WASHINGTON

Three Harvard swimmers placed in the top 25 in their respective events at the NCAA championships held at the King County Aquatic Center in Federal Way, Wash., March 20 through 22. As a team, the Crimson finished 31st out of 41 schools with 19 points. Yale, Penn, and Princeton placed 20th, 23rd, and 28th, respectively, while the University of Arizona captured the championship.

Harvard junior Eric Lynch paced the Crimson effort with an 18th-place finish in the finals of the 1,650-meter freestyle event. He completed the race in a time of 15:11.36. Senior Geoff Rathgeber, meanwhile, placed 24th in the 200-meter breaststroke, touching the wall in 1:59.08. In the 200-meter butterfly, junior Bill Jones placed 25th in the preliminaries, with a time of 1:46.12.

TIGERS TRIP UP POSTSEASON RUN FOR MEN’S HOCKEY

Princeton goaltender Zane Kalemba recorded 35 saves to thwart the Harvard men’s hockey team’s ECAC championship bid this past March 22 in Albany. The 4-1 loss ends a dramatic late-season push by the Crimson squad (17-13-4), which put together a 6-0-1 record in its final seven league games to finish third in the regular season.

In the loss, the No. 15 Tigers scored two unanswered goals in the first and second periods before notching a pair of tallies in the final stanza. Senior Jon Pelle tallied the Crimson’s lone goal on a power play just 24 seconds into the third period.

Harvard has now reached the ECAC title game six times in the past seven seasons.

FRESHMAN SAILORS PACE CRIMSON AT CENTRAL SERIES TWO

The Harvard sailing team had its best weekend performance (March 29-30) at the Central Series Two on the Charles River. Paced by the freshman duo of Matt Donelan and Grace Charles, who had five top five finishes in the B division, the Crimson placed ninth out of 18 schools.

CWPA SELECTS 12 HARVARDIANS TO ALL-ACADEMIC TEAM

The Collegiate Water Polo Association (CWPA) recently announced its selection of 101 student-athletes to the 2007 All-Academic Team. Harvard placed 12 student-athletes to the list, including eight underclassmen.

The Harvard selections include seniors Brian Kuczynski and Chris Ludwick, juniors J. Connolly and David Tune, sophomores Egen Atkinson, Thomas Bailey, Mitch Denti, Dan Furman, and Sean Mitchell, and freshmen John Kolb, Alex Thompson, and Bret Voith. These Crimson athletes had an average 3.51 GPA.