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Swim meet vs. UConneticut Credit: Freda Zhao , Freda Zhao

Once again, Penn finds itself .500 on the week.

For the second time in as many weekends, both the men’s and women’s swimming and diving teams split their respective Ivy tri-meets, with both programs defeating Brown and falling to Harvard on Saturday.

On the men’s side, the Quakers finished their Ivy League meet season with a 203-95 win over Brown and a 190-108 loss to Harvard.

The men’s squad was anchored by its pair of standout junior captains, Eric Schultz and Chris Swanson. Both scored maximum points for Penn in their respective freestyle events. Swanson topped the podium twice, winning the 500-yard freestyle in 4:32.97 and touching first again in the 1000-yard free with a time of 9:20.15.

Schultz won the 100-yard freestyle in 45.44 and also contributed to the Quakers’ scorecard with a second place finish in the 50-yard freestyle.

“I was really happy with the progress we made from last week to this week,” coach Mike Schnur said. “We did not swim very well at all against Yale last weekend, and with a lot of guys sick these past few weeks, those that were healthy could have rolled over and quit.

“But we didn’t do that and we responded well, and it was a good weekend for us.”

Among other impressive finishes of the day for Penn were the swims by freshman Alex Peterson. He completed a grueling triple: the 1000 free, 500 free and 400-yard IM. Despite a tough schedule, the freshman finished second behind his junior captain in both freestyle events and narrowly missed the crown in the IM behind Harvard’s Christian Carbone.

“Alex was a warrior out there this weekend,” Schnur said of the rookie’s performance. “He swam some of the fastest times we’ve seen of someone who hasn’t been rested for those distances, and to see him go out there and take on and press past some of those Harvard guys was amazing to see.”

On the women’s side, after taking down Brown 175-124, the Quakers came up just short of an upset of the Crimson, falling 158-141.

“Our women were in that meet the whole way,” Schnur said. “We were more focused on Brown than on Harvard, but then suddenly came a point where we realized we were right there with the defending Ivy Champions, and we were fighting for that win.”

The Red and Blue came away with two event wins on the day against their Ivy opponents. Sophomore Ellie Grimes finished first in the 200-yard breast with a time of 2:20.36, and sophomore Rochelle Dong put forward yet another impressive performance in the 100-yard fly, winning the event in a time of 55.60.

“Rochelle is just absolutely dominating right now,” Schnur said. “She has just been in great form recently and is one of our swimmers looking to make an impact yet again at the Ivy Championships.”

Junior Lauren Church and senior Taylor Sneed also helped pace the Quakers, as Church took home second- place finishes in both the 100-yard and 200-yard backstrokes and Sneed collected a secondplace finish in the 100 fly and took third in the 100 back.

Having now faced the entirety of the Ivy League, all heads will be turned towards the Ivy Championships next month. And after this weekend’s performance, both teams should have a good degree of confidence for the weeks ahead.

“We raced very well this weekend, and just as importantly, I think we competed very well this weekend,” Schnur said. “That gives us a lot of hope going forward.”

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