NEW YORK — The Columbia men's swimming and diving team bounced back with a huge win on Saturday afternoon, defeating the Cornell Big Red, 165-128, at Uris Natatorium. 

The Lions opened things up in style, placing first and second in the 200-yard medley relay. Columbia was led by the team of Andy Huang, Matthew Lou, Brian Lee, and Zion James who finished with a time of 1:30.44 to take first place. 

In the first individual event of the afternoon, Columbia had the crowd on its feet. Zach Vasser cruised to a dominant victory in the 1000-free, clocking in with a time of 9:32.12. In a competitive race for second, it was Hunter Kroll who emerged victorious, beating out Cornell's Julian Correa by 0.2 seconds. 

Stanford Li continued to dominate in the backstroke. First, he won the 100-back with a time of 49.75. He went on to win the 200-back later in the afternoon with a time of 1:47.97

Demirkan Demir was back to his old ways of dominating the breaststroke, winning the 100-breast with a time of 55.92. He also won the 200-breast with a time of 2:03.00. 

Adam Wu picked up right where he left off yesterday when he won three events, winning another event today. This time, he won the 200-fly with a time of 1:48.09.

In the final event of the day, Columbia earned a win in the 400-free relay. The team of Li, Samuel Eckert, René Strezenicky, and James clocked in at 3:01.45 to take first place. 

Other winners for the Lions included Zion James who won the 50-free with a time of 20.83, and Brian Lee who won the 100-fly with a time of 48.36.

As for the divers, Joseph Nicol kept rolling. After earning his first collegiate win in the 3m yesterday at Army, he once again won the 3m competition today with a score of 331.88. He completed the first sweep of his career when he won the 1m dive later in the afternoon with a personal best score of 328.35. 

"It's great thrill as a coach to see someone perform at a high-level," Head Diving Coach Scott Donie said. "Joe really defended his home pool and boards today with his first ever college dual meet sweep. Go Lions!"

Full results from the meet, including all of the Lions' top performers and times, can be found HERE.

Next up for Columbia will be a non-conference meet against Navy on Friday, January 26 at Uris Natatorium. The competition is scheduled to begin at noon. 
 
For the latest on the Columbia men's swimming and diving program, follow @CULionsMSD and @CULionsDiving on Instagram and Twitter, and on the web at GoColumbiaLions.com.