After falling behind early against a strong Navy squad, the men’s swimming and diving team’s comeback bid fell short with a 152–131 loss.

The Elis, following its first conference victory against Dartmouth last week, arrived in Annapolis to take onthe Naval Academy, which now boasts a 9–1 record. Its sole loss came early in the season against the defending ACC champion University of Virginia.

“Navy right now is a deeper and stronger program than we are right now,” head coach Tim Wise said.

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In the meet’s first event, the 200-mtr medley relay team of Jason Choi ’11, Chris Luu ’12, Kyle Veatch ’11 and Pat Killian ’14 finished second. Matt Lee ’11 followed up with a second place in the 800-mtr freestyle, continuing his strong showing in distance events this season.

Navy then pulled ahead by sweeping the top three spots in six events: 50 and 200-mtr freestyle, 100 and 200- backstroke, 100-mtr breaststroke and 200-mtr butterfly.

The Midshipmen enjoyed strong showings from several underclassmen and juniors Mark Meyer and Mac Anthony.

Veatch stopped the slide by taking second in the 100-mtr freestyle with a time of 52.39, losing by a third of a second. Then the Bulldogs responded to their captain’s performance and began their comeback.

“It was certainly a gut-check to fall behind so early,” Veatch said. “But the team responded well to the challenge and put up some good times in the second half of the meet.”

Luu won the 200-mtr breaststroke in 2:25.13 while Jared Lovett ’13 took second with 2:29.80 and Alex Benz ’12 rounded out the top three in 2:32.04. In the 400-mtr freestyle, freshmen Mike Bogese, West Cutherbert and Killian impressed by taking the top three spots.

The Elis continued to dominate with Matt Boone ’11 (58.83), Choi (59.36) and Ed Becker ’14 (59.63) sweeping the 100-mtr butterfly.

Lee took the 200-yard individual medley in 2:10.40, edging teammate Danny McDermott ’14, who finished second with 2:12.70. Scott Shinton ’12 took third with 2:14.30.

The team rounded out the day with a 1-2-3 finish in the 400-mtr freestyle. The ‘A’ relay team of Mike Dominski ’13, Killian, Boone and Veatch won the event with an impressive 3:31.57.

Eli divers also had a strong showing. Eric Olson ’11 took first in 3-mtr dive and teammate Tyler Pramer ’14 finished second.

“Even if we may not have won races at the beginning, the team continued to fight,” Matt Lee ’11 said. “Fortunately things went in our favor and we had some nice performances in several events.”

The Bulldogs will face an even tougher challenge this weekend at home against Harvard and Princeton, which currently sit atop of the Ivy League standing. But the team is undaunted.

“We should be able to challenge their prowess in many races,” Veatch said. “The biggest focus is going to put up season bests in all events and get our hands on the wall before the guys swimming next to us.”

The tri-team meet will begin at 6 p.m. on Saturday and continue on Sunday.