After the first day of the Men’s Ivy League Swim and Dive Championship at DeNunzio Pool in Princeton, New Jersey, the Red sat third in the standings. The men have finished as high as third only once since 1962, in 2009.
Despite the hot start, the men ended the season in fifth overall for the second consecutive year. The Red bested Penn, Dartmouth and Brown, while falling to Columbia, Harvard, Yale and champions Princeton. Fifth constitutes the Red’s joint-best finish since their historic 2009 season.
“Fifth is a really good victory,” men’s head coach Wes Newman ’09 said. “We were in a big battle between Columbia and Brown throughout the course of the meet. At the end, Columbia pulled ahead of us, but we [pulled ahead] of Brown. [We’re] really happy about that.”
In a major highlight for the Red, sophomore Josh Toothman boasted a record-breaking performance with his time in the 50-yard freestyle preliminary round. He swam a 19.45, qualified for the A Final and earned himself the distinction of being “the fastest Cornellian in water ever.” In other words, Toothman broke the school record in the quickest event.
Yale, who ended the meet in second, disrupted Harvard and Princeton’s 53-year streak of exclusive ownership of the top two spots in the Ivy League.
Newman, who broke seven school records swimming in the 2009 championship, identified the historical dominance of Harvard and Princeton as drastic inhibitors of higher placement for the Red.
“A lot of it has to do with recruiting against opposing big names [like] Harvard and Princeton,” Newman said. “Yale is usually third as well, so it’s very hard to crack the top three.”
Nevertheless, Newman maintained that the recruiting disadvantage is not an excuse for lackluster performances.
“We’re always trying to improve our performances,” he said.
Improve their performances the men did. They swam a total of 38 personal bests by the end of the meet, up from 35 achieved in the previous year.
“They’ve put in a lot of hard work this year,” Newman said. “They’ve been really focused with it and that obviously paid off with those personal best times.”
In one of the many personal best finishes, junior Blake Conway won the gold medal in the 100-yard backstroke, to the utter delight of Newman and his teammates.
“It was electric,” Newman said. “The whole team was jumping up and down, I think we were all three feet in the air when he touched the wall first, which was so exciting.”
Newman further praised Conway’s poise in such a high-pressure scenario.
“We’re all very confident in [Conway’s] abilities, but being able to go a specific time is different than doing it [in the A Final], doing it in a packed stadium with all your teammates watching and screaming, with music blaring when you’re walking out in strobe lights,” Newman said. “[Conway] really put it together when [he] needed to. That’s what made it really special.”
Senior Pietro Ubertalli was the star of the 2025 championship, earning three gold medals, three bronze medals and finishing fourth overall in total points. This year, he came home with a solo bronze medal in the 200-yard backstroke, finishing a mere .01 seconds off silver.
Newman explained that the diminished return from Ubertalli this year has been the result of “various hurdles.”
“When it comes to conditioning, the clock doesn’t lie,” Newman said. “There’s no doubt that [Ubertalli] did everything he could to be ready, but the various hurdles that he had over the course of the season unfortunately showed up [in] the championships.”
Despite his hurdles, Ubertalli still led the men in total scoring, putting 78 points on the board for the Red, good for 10th overall.
Other parts of the Red shone during the championship. In his first-ever A Final, junior Haihan Xu ended the 100-yard breaststroke in fourth overall, only .08 seconds off bronze. Xu swam in his second-ever A Final soon afterwards, finishing sixth in the 200-yard breaststroke.
Newman indicated that, despite the near miss in the 100-yard breaststroke, Xu will be a force to reckon with in the future.
“In the grand scheme of things, being in the A Final is already a victory for [Xu],” Newman said. “He’s really stepped up and made a name for himself within our league.”
In a similar vein to Xu, senior Jacques Grove also swam in his first A final, two to be precise. Grove finished fourth in the 200-yard butterfly and 5th in the 200-yard freestyle.
“[Grove] making two [A Finals] this year was a huge success,” Newman said. “He had a big [personal best] in the [preliminary round] of the 200-yard butterfly to sneak into eighth place and then he went faster in the final. It was fantastic.”
Team captain junior Julian Correa finished seventh in the 400-yard individual medley, almost breaking his previously-set school record in the process. According to Newman, his leadership skills are indispensable.
“[Correa] has been such a solid captain for us this year,” Newman said. “He scored valuable points in some of the most demanding and hardest races. He’s just a great leader for that distance group.”
Other important swimmers for the Red include sophomore Gabe Anagnoson, who ended the championship with 49 points and sophomore Phillip Osadsky, who put 29 points on the board for the Red.
The Ivy League Championship was the last team action for men’s swim and dive in the 2025-2026 season. The 2026-27 season will begin November 2026.
