Prnn rolls over Hopkins for first victory of season

W. Swimming is confident it can make it two in a rowW. Swimming is confident it can make it two in a rowwhen the Quakers travel to Swarthmore this evening The Penn women's swimming team is riding out the season on a new wave. With the Eastern Championships only two weeks away, the Quakers (1-8, 0-7 Ivy) are trying to pick up some victories at the last four meets to help boost their confidence. The first stop -- Friday's meet against Johns Hopkins. After tying the Blue Jays 111-111 last season, Penn was ready to show Johns Hopkins who was really king of the sea. Against the Blue Jays, the Quakers finally got their first victory of the season. "It was nice to get our first win of the season to a team we tied last year," Penn assistant coach Mike Schnur said. "That was a nice little bit of revenge." The Quakers won by an impressionable margin, with every swimmer contributing. "We swam very well," Schnur said. "We swam the best meet we swam all year. Hopkins won very few events. There were a lot of close races, but our women toughed it out and won just about every close race." Sophomore Christy Meyer swam lifetime bests in both the 100-yard and 200 breaststroke events. "At this point in the season that's very rare," Schnur said. "We haven't really tapered yet, and she's not shaved. And she swam fantastically well." Freshman Alycia Kaufman also swam extremely well, finishing with a time of 1 minute, 9.3 seconds in the breaststroke, just off her best time. "The breaststrokers swam absolutely great on Friday," Schnur said. "Kaufman and Meyer both swam great. There is no other way to describe it. The two breaststrokers definitely led the way for the team." The excitement carried over to the other end of the pool as well. Sophomore Naomi Stoller had a great day on the diving board, winning the 1-meter dive. That performance marked her first victory in any diving event since she began competing at Penn. "We were real happy for her," Schnur. "Diving definitely helped us in this meet, and that was nice." Most importantly this meet put a number in the win column. "We were psyched to win," senior captain Alison Zegar said. "We didn't want another tie. We knew we were a lot stronger this year, so we were just really psyched to win for once. I think it was a meet that let people relax a little bit and realize that they're not going to get killed every time. And it boosted their confidence so that they're ready to swim really fast at Easterns." But the very next day, Penn had to board a bus and take a six-hour trip to Boston to compete against Harvard (7-2, 4-1). The Crimson's 146-72 victory could have quenched the overmatched Quakers' rising confidence. But Penn, understanding that Harvard was a powerhouse, still took solace in some good performances. Freshman Gretchen Price swam a strong 500 freestyle. Freshman Lauren Wald raced well in the 100 breaststroke, and Stoller and freshman Jessica Ngo performed well in the diving events. "We were tired," Schnur said. "The Hopkins meet took a lot of out the women. They struggled a little bit yesterday because of it. And it was a bit of a let down because they knew they weren't in a position to win. We swam off events, and moved a lot of people around to take the pressure off people." Now, with barely a day's rest, the Quakers are back on the road to compete against Swarthmore (11-1). Penn is confident it can defeat the Garnet, which would further swell the Quakers' building momentum for Easterns. Swarthmore is in the same Division III conference as Johns Hopkins and, just two weeks ago, the Garnet upset the Blue Jays. Since Swarthmore is having a banner year, it will not be as easy for Penn to swim all over the Garnet as the Quakers had originally planned. But there is still little doubt on the deck of Sheerr Pool that the Quakers will add a second notch to the win column after today's meet. "It's a lot easier to travel to a meet a half an hour than six hours," Schnur said. "[Swarthmore has] got a nice team, but I expect our team to win. If the women swim the way they're capable of, we'll beat them?We need all 18 women to swim well tomorrow. But we're deeper than they are and we should come out on top." Penn expects to be led by the freestylers. The more competitive races should be in the breaststroke, in which two of the Garnet's top swimmers compete. "I swam two of my best times on Friday, which hopefully will carry over," Meyer said. "Swarthmore has three really good swimmers that are at our level. Two of the girls are in my race so I hope I can beat them." Schnur agreed. "It should be a real knock-down, drag-out battle in those two [breaststroke] events and that should be fun to watch."