Brown is heavy favorite

The Penn women's swimming team is not going into tomorrow's meet against Brown with any great expectations. The Quakers fully understand the odds against them upsetting the Bears. The Bears beat Princeton, one of the nation's strongest squads, and the Tigers dominated Penn, 174-120 on Nov. 21. Therefore, the outcome of this weekend's meet at Sheerr Pool is pretty much a foregone conclusion. "Swimming is such that you need to have all your events covered," Penn coach Kathy Lawlor-Gilbert said. "Some people say to me, 'What's the fun of it if you know the outcome?' But there's more to life than the outcome. It takes a real strong mind to put the win-loss factor aside." The Bears finished in fifth place at last year's Eastern Women's Swimming League Championships, while the Quakers finished 11th -- dead last. With Katrina Walters and Heidi Schambra -- last year's second and fifth-place finishers in the 200-yard backstroke at the championship meet -- returning to Providence, Brown will again have one of the strongest backstroke squads in the conference. "Brown is stronger than us, deeper than us," Lawlor-Gilbert said. "The women's team understands that, and they're going to be competitive no matter where I put them because they have been practicing how to race. So no matter where I put them they want to race." With an upset victory unlikely tomorrow, Penn will instead try and prepare for the rest of its schedule, giving the swimmers the chance to try some new events. "I am swimming some people in events that they have not had an opportunity to swim," Lawlor-Gilbert said. "We need to continually evaluate performances to make the Eastern selection team and to enter those people who make Easterns in their best events." Are the Quakers throwing in the towel before the fight is over? No, says Lawlor-Gilbert. "Even by moving people around, our aim is still to maximize points," she explained. "But we need to use this meet for experience. We don't have every event covered.