Motivated Mids race past W. Swimming

With its biggest meet of the year on the horizon, the tired Penn women's swimming team visited Navy on Saturday. And while the Quakers' quest for a pre-Dartmouth treat was torpedoed 164-133 by a stronger and deeper Navy squad, Penn (5-5) still has reason to feel good about its performance, which dropped it to .500 on the year. Considering that the Quakers lost to Navy by 74 points last season and fell to the Midshipmen by a whopping 115 points in 1998, this year's mere 31-point separation is really not so bad for the Quakers. "It was nice to compete against a team who's really killed us the last couple years," Penn coach Mike Schnur said. "We haven't even been in the Navy meet [in] probably four or five years. The last two or three years, they've really hammered us, and we've gotten a lot better and a lot closer to them. In fact, I'm pretty confident in saying next year we'll beat them." That might not be so easy, given the high motivation level of the Midshipmen. "The Navy girls were pretty fired up about this meet, too," Penn junior captain Cathy Holland said. "It was their last meet [before the Patriot League championships], it was the senior girls' very last meet, so they definitely didn't want to lose this meet. They did not want to lose to us." Early on, it looked as if Navy would run rampant. The Midshipmen won the first five events, while placing more swimmers in the important second, third and fourth places than the Quakers did. Not until freshman Kate Patrizzi swam an impressive 2:21.03 200-meter butterfly -- a mark that not only approached the Navy pool's record but also beat some of the 200 fly times in the Penn-Navy men's meet Saturday -- in the day's sixth event did the Quakers taste first place. But even then, the Midshipmen racked up points by securing the second, third and fourth places. "She's a big part of the team. She's the best flyer we've had on the team in a long, long time. And she never loses," Schnur said of Patrizzi, who trains with the men's team's flyers. "She gets in there and races and is really becoming possessive with those events, and taking charge of them, and saying before she gets on the blocks, 'None of you can beat me. This is my event. I own it.' It's great to see. I expect big things from her at the Ivy championships, as well as the next three years." Patrizzi's stellar performance seemed to catalyze a furious Quakers comeback in the second half of the meet. Freshman Jessica Anders won the 50 freestyle in the next event, and the Quakers picked up crucial points by capturing second and fourth places. Anders then won the 100 free, while fellow freshman Margaret Jones triumphed in the 200 backstroke. In this stretch, Patrizzi completed a fine meet by winning the 100 fly. At the end of the day, however, the Quakers found that the early hole they had put themselves in was too deep. "They lost the first five events, and a lot of them were heartbreakers. I mean, they were really close," Schnur said. "And they had every reason in the world to quit. Our team had no reason to fight as hard as they did. And yet, they killed themselves to get back in that meet, and it shows a lot of guts on their part. "In years past, that meet would have been a hundred-point blowout. We would have absolutely given up and done nothing at the end of the meet. And this year's team has much more heart than any team I've ever seen. They're really a pleasure to coach because of it. We never gave up, and we didn't lose by much at all." Nothing separates the Quakers from a showdown with Dartmouth now except for five days of practice. And, in those five days, the Quakers hope to do what it takes to let themselves take full advantage of strength gained from their grueling winter break training regimen. To this end, the Quakers will most likely begin to rest later in the week. Schnur also wants to emphasize the "little things" in practice this week that, in his opinion, have been de-emphasized in the hustle and bustle of training. He gave relay starts as one example of a little thing that needs to be worked on. "Right now, we're definitely looking towards this Saturday," Holland said. "This past weekend, it was just another opportunity to get up and race, and we definitely did that. Unfortunately, we didn't win."