In an unorthodox contest featuring events such as the 25-yard freestyle and the 800-yard individual medley, both the Dartmouth men's and women's swimming teams fell to perennial power Princeton on Sunday at Karl Michael Pool, after the men had suffered a loss to Columbia Saturday.
Dartmouth's diving duo of Toby Hays '99 and Courtney duBois '99 took top honors in both the men's and women's events, with Hays defeating a strong Princeton cast in both one- and three-meter competition and DuBois winning the one-meter event by over 30 points.
"I had my best meet ever on three-meter... it was considerably my highest score," Hays said.
Hays also led the Big Green men in their close loss to Columbia on Saturday, which featured standout performances from Mike Hooper '99 and Ryan Utsumi '01.
Despite falling to the Lions 181-112, Dartmouth turned out several season's best performances. Hooper captured both the 200 butterfly and backstroke events while Utsumi won the 500 and 1,650 freestyle races.
Meanwhile, Hays continued his dominance of Ivy League diving by winning the one-meter diving competition. However, a buckled knee on his last dive in the three-meter competition caused Hays to fail the dive, dropping him from first to second in the final standings.
"I was glad it happened now rather than at Easterns," he said, adding that this was his first failed dive in his Dartmouth career.
With regards to the meet, Utsumi noted that "it ended up much closer than I thought it was going to be." He credited stellar performances from Geoff Walford '99, Scott Gabbard '02 and Hooper for closing the gap.
Hooper's outstanding time in the 200 backstroke broke his lifetime best by two seconds, though it is not an event he usually swims for Dartmouth.
"I think I will end up swimming [the 200 backstroke] every meet from now on," he said.
The Columbia meet gave the Big Green swimmers a major confidence boost as many swimmers turned out season's best times.
"My times put me right where I want be at this point in the season," Utsumi said.
The Princeton meet was more challenging for the Big Green men as they faced a tougher opponent after a day of hard swimming.
"It's always a difficult meet ... we were pretty tired, pretty run-down," Hooper said.
For the women, it was a slightly different story. On Sunday, freshman sprinter Lindsay Nicholls came out on top in a hotly contested 50 freestyle, defeating all three of Princeton's contenders in the race.
Along with Gret Duckworth '00 -- who won the 200 freestyle by just over half a second -- Nicholls combined for one of only two Big Green individual victories.
"I wasn't really expecting to win," Nicholls said. "I was racing the people next to me ... but after my turn I realized I could actually win."
In addition, the quartet of Duckworth, Karen Anderson '99, Kristen LeFevre '02 and Caitlin Murphy '02 defeated the Tigers in the 200 freestyle relay for the second straight year.
Nicholls also took fourth place in the 25 freestyle, an event usually reserved for youth swimmers in the eight year-old range. It is a Dartmouth-Princeton tradition to race in unusual events, lending a change of pace to a sometimes monotonous sport.
Hooper took second in the 800 I.M., another race not usually swum in a Ivy League duel meet. A grueling event consisting of eight laps of each stroke -- butterfly, backstroke, breastroke and freestyle -- the 32-lap race left most competitors winded for their next events.
"It was a lot harder than I thought it would be," Utsumi said.
Another strong performance came from Walford in the 50 freestyle. A strong finish propelled him to second place in a fast heat of Princeton sprinters.
The Tigers eventually won the men's competition, 179-107, while the women's squad defeated Dartmouth, 166-126.
Princeton -- whose men's and women's teams have long been national powerhouses -- were both runners-up at their respective championship meets last year.
Dartmouth will be back in action when the women take on the University of Vermont at home on Wednesday and both teams travel to New Haven, Conn. for meets with Yale and the University of Pennsylvania on Saturday.
