Quakers control Philly foe

It is no easy feat for a team to go through a long and arduous month of competition with as much success as the Penn men's swimming team -- winning six meets in the last three weeks. The Quakers (7-4, 2-4 Ivy) had little trouble in their 140-101 victory over crosstown rival La Salle on Saturday at Kirk Pool. "La Salle was not expected to give us much of a problem," Penn coach Mike Schnur said. "Their program has nowhere near the amount of depth that ours has." The Explorers (3-6) were outmatched by Penn in virtually every race on paper and were by far the weakest team that Penn has faced all season in dual-meet competition. The Quakers, however, had the extra challenge of swimming against La Salle on their Senior Day. Five La Salle seniors were honored, which gave the Explorers some added momentum before the meet. "They seemed psyched up and ready to swim at the beginning," Penn freshman Jon Kaufman said. "Some of their guys definitely swam more impressively than we thought they would." The Quakers once again jumped out to an early lead by placing first and second in the 200 medley relay. Penn has captured the first event in six of their last eight meets. The Red and Blue never relinquished their lead as they went on to take either first or second place in 11 individual events. Sophomore Brian Funk and freshman Pat Maloney finished first and second respectively in the 1000 freestyle. Funk completed the race in 9:53.82, six-hundreths of a second ahead of Maloney. Junior Andrew Trout, absent from last week's meet against Rider due to illness, turned in a first place performance in the 50 freestyle with a time of 21.65. Trout also finished third in the 100 butterfly, behind freshman Evan Jellie and senior Nate Pinney, who took first in 52.48. "I was really impressed by [Andrew's] determination," Pinney said. "Any of us could have won the 100 butterfly and he had just recovered from a sickness." The Quakers also finished 1-2-3 in the 100 breaststroke, with freshman Jon Kaufman notching his first victory of the year in 59.45. Also contributing were senior co-captain Spencer Driscoll and junior Eric Hirschhorn, who placed first and second respectively in the 200 individual medley. "The La Salle meet was sort of used as a training meet to get a lot of guys who don't get much racing time a chance to swim," Driscoll said. "We did what we had to do to win but we knew it wouldn't be that difficult." After early losses to Cornell, Columbia, and Princeton, the Quakers knew that January would be the month that would define their season. The meet against La Salle brought the month to a close -- with the Quakers having won seven of their eight meets. "La Salle was the last stop of our long stretch of meets in January," Driscoll said. "Looking back, we definitely swam some good races and earned a lot of respect."