W. Swimming faces grueling weekend

It has been a season of challenges for the Penn women's swimming team. Anchored by the largest group of freshmen in team history, the struggling Quakers have managed to stay confident, comfortable in the knowledge that each effort put forth is better than the last and that given time, they will improve even more. However, this weekend may be the greatest challenge yet for the young Penn swimmers. Tomorrow, the Quakers head to New York where they will face Columbia at 6 p.m. The team will be back at Sheerr Pool at high noon on Sunday to duel with Harvard. While basketball teams regularly play twice in one weekend, it is not a common occurrence for swimmers. It will be especially tough on the multitude of freshmen swimmers, as most of them have just gotten used to swimming weekly after monthly meets in high school. "I've never really done anything like this before," Penn freshman Anne Deger said. "But it'll work out all right." Working out "all right" does not necessarily mean a dual meet victory for the Quakers (6-10, 0-5 Ivy League). Penn is mainly looking to continue its steady improvement this weekend. The Quakers will be happy to set more personal best times, as they have been doing all season. "I'm looking at both meets to get them personal bests," Penn coach Kathy Lawlor-Gilbert said. "The outcome is very tough to determine because we still only have one diver against three, and those odds are hard to surmount." Penn's shortage of divers won't be its only difficulty tomorrow night at the Dodge Physical Fitness Center. Columbia (6-2, 2-2) has the single best swimmer the Quakers may ever face -- junior Christina Teuscher. Teuscher swam the fastest leg of the United States' gold medal-winning 800-meter freestyle relay team at the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta. Since then, she has been one of the Ivy League's most dominant swimmers. "She's really fast," Deger said. "I won't be swimming against her, but if I was, I'd just worry about swimming my best time and whatever that means on the scoreboard, big deal." Penn sophomore Cathy Holland remarked, "she's got a beautiful stroke, it's really nice to be able to watch her in the pool. But she is just another person." Holland added that "this weekend the focus is more on our team and what we can get out of these meets." The lack of success on the scoreboard this season is troubling, but not heartbreaking for the Quakers. Each member of the team knows that the squad is much better than the one that narrowly lost to Cornell in the season opener at Sheerr Pool. They hope to show that improvement to the Red and Blue faithful on Sunday against Harvard (3-2, 1-1) in the Quakers' final dual meet of the season. "You're always disheartened when you lose," Lawlor-Gilbert said. "We've had great opportunities and we've come close. The team knows exactly where they stand. They're looking to rip up the pool at Columbia and swim really fast on Sunday. How it all ends up in the points, we'll find out." Another hopeful sign for a Penn victory is that the swimmers who are not going to Easterns will be shaved for this weekend. "That's what's overshadowed -- that the kids are doing lifetime bests when they're not even shaved and tapered," Lawlor-Gilbert said. "They are so close to being one of the best teams I've ever had, but they seem so far to a person who's just looking at the scores." Even if the scores this weekend do not reflect Lawlor-Gilbert's praise in this weekend's meets, almost the entire team will be returning next season. With a year of collegiate swimming experience under the freshmen's belts, the Red and Blue will be expected to show that improvement on the scoreboard at Sheerr in 2000.