M. Swimming sinks Columbia

There was snow on the ground Saturday, but the heat was on inside at Sheerr Pool as the Penn men's swimming team prepared to avenge last year's three-point loss to Columbia. The Quakers tamed the Lions, 147-94, taking first place in 10 of the 15 events. The Lions (2-3) came out roaring in the first event, the 400-yard individual medley. In the first leg of the relay, three Columbia backstrokers finished under 55 seconds, with their first man touching the wall in 52.3. By the time the breaststroke leg was over, the race looked over. Columbia had almost a four-second lead. But junior Ken Fletcher had other ideas, putting together a monster 50.5 second butterfly leg, cutting the Lion lead to barely two seconds. That was all senior Geoff Munger needed. Munger propelled himself past Columbia's Reyn Cabinte in the last lap of the freestyle leg in 46.2 seconds. "That first event set up the whole meet," sophomore Brian Stern said. "No one thought we would come from behind like that." "We rocked them in that relay, and they were not expecting us to go after that event," Penn coach Kathy Lawlor-Gilbert said. "If you look at our [previous] results, we were supposed to be strong in the free and the fly, while they've got strength across the board and especially in the strokes. We went after them in the events that they're strong in, and we won." As expected, Penn (2-2) dominated the freestyle events and the 200 fly. Freshman Ryan Kafer and Munger pounded the Lions in the 50 free, and Kafer went on to claim the 100 free by over a second. Junior Jeff Brown easily took the 500 free, and junior Ken Fletcher swam off with the 200 fly. But Penn was supposed to win those races, while Columbia expected to take the stroke events. On paper, the teams were evenly matched. Both had lost to Cornell and beaten Yale. It should have been a dogfight. But the Columbia swimmers were wearing hangdog expressions as the Quakers neutralized their strongest swimmers in their big events. Putting co-captain and team utility man Jeff Brown in the 200 IM did more than guarantee a victory. Sophomore Rob Hassett seemed to draw from his teammate's strength and put together a great performance of his own. Hassett's time of 1 minute, 57.61 seconds -- 0.3 second behind Brown and nearly a full second ahead of Columbia's first finisher -- gave Penn a one-two finish in what was supposed to be their biggest weakness. Hassett also smoked his competition in the 200 breaststroke. Teammate Eric Rowan came in second to give the Quakers another one-two finish. But the biggest surprise of the meet had to be Stern's dramatic come from behind victory in the 200 backstroke. In the seventh lap, Stern caught Columbia's best backstroker and blasted past him, winning by 0.4 seconds in a scrappy performance that was the story of the meet. Penn also showed depth in diving, as senior Josh Schultz took first in the 1-meter competition and second on the 3-meter board. The fact that Columbia only brought one diver didn't hurt. "Columbia was ready, rested, and their best stroke people were shaved," Lawlor-Gilbert said. "So the fact that we were able to beat them meant we swam really well. It was great, especially since we're such a young team, for us to jump in and compete with this level of intensity." This meet wrapped up the first half of Penn's season. "We set ourselves up really well going into the second half of the season," Stern said. "This really helped our freshman and showed we can pull together."