In a year barren of home meets for Penn swimming, a weekend slate of away matches against locals La Salle and West Chester will nearly feel like home.
On the women’s side, the Quakers can look to freshman talent from distance swimmer Carolyn Yang and mid-distance freestyler Virginia Burns. The pair has combined for 12 individual event wins for the 2014-2015 season against both Ivy and nonconference foes.
La Salle and Division II West Chester don’t boast the strongest women’s teams, so the competition will not be very steep for the Quakers. This weekend will be a great opportunity for coach Mike Schnur to rotate some fresh faces into the lineup who don’t usually make the trek to travel meets.
Additionally, this weekend will give some of the elite racers — such as junior IMer and distance freestyler Meaghan Kwarcinski — a chance to swim their off-events, such as backstroke.
“We’ve had a lot of very competitive, high-pressure meets this season, and it will be nice to let the girls have a meet that’s not like that,” Schnur said.
The men’s squad, however, will face a much tougher challenge and will need to keep its foot on the gas if it hopes to escape the weekend without a blemish.
Junior co-captain Eric Shultz, who was just .17 seconds away from breaking a 35-year-old Sheerr Pool record in the 100-yard free against Delaware last weekend, is hungry to take on two squads that have received a lot of national attention of late. The defending Ivy league champion in the 50-yard free, Shultz will likely be one of the best swimmers in the building on both Friday and Saturday.
While West Chester is a Division II men’s squad, it is the cream of the crop in its respective division.
“West Chester is without a doubt one of the best Division II teams in the country. They have great freestylers,” Schnur said. “West Chester in particular has a guy named Victor Polyakov who is tremendous.”
Polyakov, a junior, hails from Toganrog, Russia. He is dominant in the distance freestyle events and will hope to freeze out Quakers’ star Chris Swanson in both the 1000-yard and 500-yard races.
The Golden Rams are 7-0 this season in dual meets and have no intentions of letting the Division I Quakers ruin their perfect season. That’s why the men’s team will need to focus and not look past West Chester to Saturday’s meet with La Salle.
Still, Saturday will be the true test of the weekend for Penn men’s swimming.
While the Quakers were named fifth “most improved team” in the nation by collegeswimming.com, the Explorers were 11th in the same poll.
“They’re a very much improved team, and we’re going to have a good meet with them,” Schnur conceded.
West Chester isn’t the only squad with an undefeated record, as La Salle lays claim to a winning streak of its own. The Explorers have began the year 6-0 with their most recent victory coming at the hands of a 216-87 thwarting of Loyola.
The Explorers have had luck in their home pool thus far, but the Quakers look poised to be the more experienced team heading into the contest. If any further reassurance is needed the Red and Blue men are undefeated in out -of-conference meets so far this season.
The weekend holds starkly different story lines for the three squads competing, but a 4-0 nonconference record for Penn swimming is surely not out of the question.
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