SEASON PREVIEW: W. Swimmers already in a hole

After swimming the equivalent of hundreds of miles during the summer and fall, the Penn women's swim team is finally ready to take the plunge into the 1994 season. This year the Quakers will feature only a handful of experienced swimmers who will have to cope with an array of shortcomings, making for a challenging season at best. Penn's roster will be full of inexperience when it opens its season tomorrow at Cornell with Yale. With only two seniors and one junior, the underclassmen will have to carry the weight of a team that will already be in a hole at the outset of competition. The problem is that freshman Naomi Stoller represents the entire Penn diving team. With only one diver competing, the Quakers will find themselves behind on the scoreboard after every diving session. In dual meets, scores are recorded for three divers, so the swimmers will be forced to dig out of a hole in every meet. "It's not like we're giving up before any meet," sophomore Gillian Morris said. "We're going to encourage each other as a team, and help each other towards personal bests. We'll give a lot of support to everyone as a team." Once the diving is over and the swimmers hit the water, the Quakers will use a strategy that worked well toward the end of last season. Due to the depleted roster, coach Kathy Lawlor-Gilbert will constantly shuffle her swimmers by putting different Quakers into different events throughout the season. "Our women's team is very small," assistant coach Mike Schnur said. "We have to [shuffle the lineup] out of necessity. The season tends to drag if you're doing the same event each week. This allows the athletes and the coaches to see what the swimmer's best events are." Penn will be led by junior Alison Zegar. She is one of the premier freestylers in the Ivy League, and is extremely versatile because she can swim any distance well. Although Zegar is one of only three upperclassmen, the Quakers' strength is its sophomore swimmers. Natalie Wolfinger and Emily Montes will head up the backstrokers, while Morris and Erin Ridge are expected to score a lot of points in the butterfly and backstroke, respectively. "Their attitude has been terrific," Schnur said. "It's an adjustment, a lot of them are coming from backgrounds with less of a workload. And with increased workouts and academic pressures, they're handling it amazingly well. We have the best attendance of practices that we've had in awhile." One factor on the Quakers' side is Penn can take everyone to Easterns this year. Since the playoff format has been changed so everyone now qualifies, the pressure is off. The Quakers only have to swim for themselves. So when the young Penn swimmers dive off the blocks tomorrow at 3 p.m., they will be testing the waters, literally. "We're going to use the first meet as an indicator," Schnur said. "We want to see how they're progressing. With half of the team being freshman, this will be a learning experience."