W. Swimming should have no trouble sinking Swarthmore

There is a world of difference between Penn women's swimming and the Phoenix Suns of the NBA, but let it be known that neither lacks confidence. Entering the 1993 playoffs, the Suns were the No. 1 seed in the Western Conference and were matched against the eighth-seeded Los Angeles Lakers. Suns' coach Paul Westphal caused a big ruckus by prophesying that his Suns would win the next three games and take the best-of-five series after losing the first two. They did. In a similar display of confidence, Penn coach Mike Schnur predicted a victory over Swarthmore (4-1, 1-0 Centennial Conference) today at 5 p.m. in Swarthmore, Pa. "We will win the meet because of our depth. They are good in their conference and division [NCAA Division III] but we should win almost every race." Taken only in context without looking at the bigger picture, the two scenarios are similar. Based on track record, the Suns were favored to beat the Lakers and the same holds true for Penn's meet against Swarthmore. Last year, the Quakers topped the Garnet Tide, 172-140, and during the 1995-96 season, Penn beat an eventual Centennial Conference champion Swarthmore team that featured eight national qualifiers. Schnur did concede that "[Swarthmore] has four or five strong swimmers." After competing fairly well against Cornell (118-159) and nationally ranked Princeton, the Red and Blue should be able to manage any threat posed by a Division III school. Co-captain Lauren Hibbert is also looking forward to competing against the Garnet Tide. "We always swim well against Swarthmore," said Hibbert. "Experience should not be as big a factor as it was against a top-heavy team like Cornell. The freshmen swimmers also have a chance to swim in their strongest events to be ready for the LaSalle Invitational this weekend." The freshmen, who have seen competition more recently than their older teammates, will be comfortable with the format of the LaSalle meet. This particular meet, like most of high school swimming, is done in a club format with events spread out over a weekend. In the Swarthmore dual meet, however, the events are more team oriented and finishing first becomes much more important than the time in which the race is completed. "Against Princeton we shuffled swimmers around in different events to find the best fit, but now, with LaSalle around the corner, we want to race all the girls in their best event," Schnur said. "We will concentrate on our own strengths instead of trying to weight certain races according to theirs." Last season going into the Swarthmore dual meet, Penn was in the same place as it is today both in record, (0-2), and in previous performance. After the Quakers defeated the Garnet Tide last year, they went 3-9 overall and 0-7 in the Ivy League. Schnur is confident the Quakers can earn a win at Swarthmore this year, but he is a little hesitant to name any other teams on the schedule against which he would venture to prophecy a win. All the same, Schnur has shown the ultimate confidence in his team for at least one weekend. Schnur's unabashed confidence would surely cause ESPN SportsCenter anchor Stuart Scott to say, "Yo Mike, it's your world kid, everyone else is just payin' rent." Penn hopes it can collect today.