Columbia no challenge for M. Swimming

The Penn men's swimming team's meet with Columbia took up a good portion of Saturday afternoon and was comprised of 13 events. But the meet was really over only a few minutes after it began. The Quakers thoroughly enjoyed dismantling the Lions, 146-88, in their Ivy home opener at Sheerr Pool. The victory lifted the Red and Blue's overall record to 3-1 and their Ivy record to an encouraging 2-1. Penn dominated the Lions all day, winning all but two swimming events -- the 200-yard breaststroke and the 400 free relay, both of which were won by Columbia long after the outcome of the meet was decided. In fact, the Quakers were so overpowering that their swimmers placed first, second and third in an astounding five events, including the 500 freestyle in which Penn's slowest swimmer finished a whopping 13 seconds ahead of the Lions' fastest. The first event of the meet, the 400 medley relay, was won by a Penn squad made up of representatives from each class: freshman Spencer Driscoll, sophomore Kenneth Goh, junior Vincent Connors and senior Matt Reilly. Quickly, the Quakers were out to a 13-4 lead. Penn had the match in hand by the fifth event, racing to a 74-19 lead. By the time the three-meter diving event rolled around, the Quakers had a 143-44 lead and were on the verge of beating their hated rivals by 100 points. Only the Lions' late spurt saved them from a triple-digit defeat. "Columbia was an embarrassment," senior Jon Maslow said. "They didn't even show for the meet, basically. If I was them, I would have been pretty embarrassed. That was supposed to be a really close meet and they just rolled over?. It kind of gets to be a joke after a while, when the other team kinda rolls over and plays dead." "After the first set of diving, they pretty much gave up," Driscoll said. "Our first couple events were really great and just psyched out Columbia. It was kind of a disappointment that it wasn't closer." Columbia, which hosted Fordham on Friday night before traveling to Philadelphia to face the Quakers, sat their nationally ranked sprinter Gered Doherty after the 400 medley relay against Penn. Although Doherty won the 50 and 100 freestyle against Fordham, he only swam the opening race against Penn. "[Doherty], their best sprinter, was supposedly sick, although half of our guys are also sick, so I don't know how well that bides as an excuse," Maslow said. "He's the only one that really sat. The rest of them swam, they just didn't swim very well." Among the many standout performances for the Quakers was that of junior Blake Martin. Martin beat his closest competitor by 43 seconds in the 1650 freestyle with a time of 15:57.6, his best time ever in that event. Other standout performances came from Maslow, who won the 50 and 100 freestyle, and Driscoll, who won the 200 individual medley and the 200 fly. Penn does not swim again until January 8, when the Quakers face Drexel, but after this triumph they can feel good about themselves going into the break. "We really embarrassed them, which was fun," Maslow said. "It's really fun to just send them home packing after a while."