W. Swimming holds on to beat Knights by 19 points

It was reminiscent of the Columbia meet, December 9. On that fateful day, the Penn women's swimming team was ahead, 133-112, a seemingly insurmountable lead. It came down to the last event, the 400-yard freestyle relay. The Quakers lost in one of the final legs of the race. And in turn Penn lost the entire meet, 149-151. Saturday, against Army, Penn was up 141-101, again a sufficient lead, with only three events to go. And although the Quakers managed to hang on for a 154-135 victory, they came frighteningly close to repeating the outcome of the Columbia meet. Those final three events favored Army. The Black Knights (3-7) had a very strong diving team while only one Quaker hit the water from the 3-meter board. And after the Quakers placed both first and second in three of the last five races, Army swept the top two places in the 200 individual medley. Only one race remained -- the 400 freestyle relay. Army and Penn were neck and neck through the first two legs. But then the Black Knights started to pull away in the third leg, gaining distance on the turns. While Penn senior captain Alison Zegar tried desperately to close the amount of water between her and the Army leader in the last leg, the Black Knights would not be caught. But they wouldn't win the race either. Army was disqualified in that close 400 freestyle relay because the swimmer at the start of the third leg hit the water before her teammate touched the wall. But even without gaining those points the Quakers still would have had enough points to put Army away -- barely. There was also a lot of talk floating around the deck that the Black Knights should have been disqualified in the 200 medley relay at the beginning of the meet, for the same violation as in the 400 freestyle relay. "We felt very strongly that the girl jumped [too soon]," Penn coach Kathy Lawlor-Gilbert said. "We thought that was a very fast start. And the same thing happened in the freestyle relay. The were DQ'd in the last relay. We feel very strongly that it was justice denied on the first one, justice realized on the last one." When the Quakers went into Sheerr Pool Saturday they had no specific strategy. It was every-woman swim-her-best, and every woman did. "I think the women swam really tough and were really tenacious about the meet," Lawlor-Gilbert said. "They weren't willing to give Army any points. It was like everybody had this one idea in their mind. They were going to beat Army. They wanted to win, they wanted to beat them." Penn had originally thought that the races would be close and the meet even closer, especially given the fact that Army was rested and shaved for the meet. The Quakers were led by the three seniors, Zegar, Stephanie Reiter, and Gillian Beamer. Zegar won the 1000, 500 and 200 freestyle races. Reiter had her lifetime best with a time of 5 minutes, 23 seconds in the 500 freestyle. And Beamer broke her personal record in the 200 backstroke. "The three seniors really represent what we're looking for in the team," Lawlor-Gilbert said. "Tenacity, do or die, getting in to finish grabbing points, relentless tenacity. It just epitomizes what we strive for in this team." The plan was to end the regular dual-meet season with wins against Johns Hopkins, Swarthmore and Army. The plan succeeded. "When you lose meets and get pounded, you get to this part of the season and it's really easy to go 'Oh well,' " Lawlor-Gilbert said. "And other teams might have thrown in the towel somewhere along the line, but all I can tell you is this team never threw in the towel. And I really like that. It's a nice way to finish up. So we're making our move. We're putting ourselves on the map."