Mark Andrew completes four-peat of 400 IM, men's swimming places third at Ivies

What a way to send the seniors off.

The Quakers finished in third place after four days of competition at the Ivy League Championships at Brown with 1120.5 points. Harvard clinched its third consecutive title with 1432.5 points, followed by Princeton with 1209.5 points. Columbia, Yale, Brown, Cornell and Dartmouth rounded out the eight-team field.

Penn wrapped up the Ivy Championships with two more titles. Andrew picked up his second individual victory — and seventh of his career (the relay win gives him eight total Ivy titles) — in the 200 breast, and clocked the school all-time record with a time of 1:54.38, while Yang finished second only 0.01 seconds in front of Harvard’s Daniel Chang.

The Quakers started off the event with a second place in the 200-yard medley relay, when a team of seniors Mark Blinstrub, Thomas Dillinger, and Andrew, along with sophomore Sean Lee clocked a new program record with a time of 1:25.88.

On day two, Andrew put up another impressive result in the prelims of the 200 individual medley, when he finished first and set a new pool record time of 1:43.88. However, the defending champion was not able to repeat the performance in the final.

Despite improving the program record with a time of 1:42.97, Andrew was defeated by Princeton’s Raunak Khosla. Nonetheless, the Quakers were able to remain in second place as a team thanks to Dillinger’s third-place finish in the same event and sophomore Will Thomas’ second-place finish in the 500 freestyle.

Despite the upset on the previous day, Andrew made history on Saturday, when he took first place in the 400 IM and secured his fourth consecutive win in the event. The time of 3:41.00 was also good for a new program, pool and Ivy Championships record. With this result, Andrew joined a selective group of 17 swimmers who have four-peated any event in the Ivy League and is the third Penn swimmer in history to do so — the most recent being Virginia Burns, who won her fourth title in the 500 free a year ago.

In addition, the Red and Blue were led by successful marks by Thomas, Dillinger and sophomore Boris Yang, who finished third in the 1000 free, the 400 IM, and the 100 breaststroke, respectively. Blinstrub, Andrew, Lee, and Dillinger also reset the school record in the 400 medley relay and secured a second-place finish.

Penn wrapped up the Ivy Championships with two more titles. Andrew picked up his second individual victory — and seventh of his career (the relay win gives him eight total Ivy titles) — in the 200 breast, and clocked the school all-time record with a time of 1:54.38, while Yang finished second only 0.01 second in front of Harvard’s Daniel Chang.

In the last event of the night, the Quakers closed out with an unprecedented win in the 400 free relay. It was the program's first win of that event in Ivy League history. With the same team that had finished second in the 400 medley, the Red and Blue set a new program record and guaranteed a third-place finish in the meet.

While Penn closely followed Princeton in the final standings and even had the opportunity to finish second, the result does not come as a surprise, as the Tigers and the Crimson were the only teams to defeat the Quakers in the regular season.

The future of the program remains to be seen. The team is graduating five seniors, including some of its strongest and brightest swimmers, such as Andrew – who received the Harold Ulen Career High Point Swimmer title with 351 points earned over the past four years. However, the younger athletes have proven their talent during the season and in the championship.

After a successful Ivy Championships and a consistent season, the Quakers definitely have a reason to celebrate.