SEASON REVIEW: W. Swimmers faced injuries

Four meets into the 1993-94 season, the Penn women's swimming team reached its crossroads. That's the point when all four members of the women's diving team either quit or fell victim to injuries, forcing the Quakers to forfeit 32 valuable diving points in every contest for the remainder of year. At the time, Penn was coming off a disappointing 167-131 loss to Columbia and still in search of its first victory of the season. With offseason personnel problems reducing the team roster to a scant 14 swimmers and only four upperclassmen, the Quakers were already severely handicapped. "Obviously, depth was a problem," sophomore Alison Zegar said. "We knew we weren't going to get points from the lower positions and it was going to be difficult for us to compete with larger, powerhouse schools." With the additional burden left by the diving team putting Penn in an even deeper hole, it would have been easy for the Quakers just to go on vacation until the individual-oriented Eastern championships arrived at the end of the season -- especially since they had already wasted their best opportunity of the season for an Ivy League victory with the loss to Columbia. Instead, Penn showed its character by splitting its final six dual meets to finish 3-7 overall, 0-7 Ivy League. After dropping two tough contests with Dartmouth and Brown, the Quakers exploded with three consecutive dual-meet victories. "We were already used to dealing with a small team," freshman Emily Montes said. "So losing the diving team wasn't that big a deal. We swam against three schools that weren't as strong and that helped us a little bit." Penn began its midseason streak by crushing Navy and Johns Hopkins, 168.5-125.5 and 140-93, respectively, in a rare weekend sweep at Sheerr Pool. The Quakers then captured their third victory in four days, defeating Swarthmore 109-76 for their only road victory of the year. Despite modest success in the win column, Penn coach Kathy Lawlor-Gilbert maintained from the season's outset the Eastern championships would provide the best showcase for her swimmers' talents. "We focused from the beginning of the season on qualifying as many swimmers as we could for Easterns," freshman Gillian Morris said. "We ended up scoring only four less points than last year's team with only half as many people, so I think we did pretty well." Morris and Zegar were probably the Quakers' most consistent and versatile swimmers throughout the 1993-94 season. Zegar, Penn's top finisher at the Easterns with a 10th-place finish in the 200-yard freestyle and an 11th in the 1,650 free, was equally tough in the sprints and distance events all season long. Morris (14th in the 200 butterfly at Easterns) kept the Quakers in a number of meets this season with key victories in fly and freestyle sprints. Senior Megan Staats, sophomores Gillian Beamer, Tanya Nolan and Kari Bolstad, and freshmen Natalie Wolfinger and Montes also qualified for the Easterns. Morris thought the season was an enjoyable, if not successful, campaign overall. "It was a lot of fun this year," Morris said. "I wasn't disappointed. As a freshman, it was a bit of learning experience, but we all had a good time." With a solid nucleus of underclassman, the promise of a deeper roster and the return of the diving team next year, the Penn women's swimming program appears to be on the rise again. Next year, there may not even be a crossroads.