Weary W. Swimming steams toward Navy

With the return of Kathie Dykes, Penn looks to win its second straight. The Penn women's swimming team will drop anchor in Annapolis tomorrow afternoon, and the Quakers hope that they'll have their second victory in a row by the time they set sail for home. After defeating Army last Saturday, the Quakers (4-3, 1-3 Ivy League) will try to go two-for-two against the Armed Forces when they face Navy (5-4) at noon. But the Quakers team that the Midshipmen will host will be a tired one. Penn has continued its intensive winter break training regimen over this first week of classes in an effort to prepare for their critical meet against Dartmouth a week from tomorrow. The meet in Hanover, N.H., will represent Penn's final realistically winnable Ivy meet. This is a showdown that the Quakers have repeatedly pointed to as the most important of the second semester. "We're still working hard. Look at their faces. They're tired," Penn coach Mike Schnur said of his swimmers. "We're not as concerned with this meet, we're much more concerned with next week. The focus of our dual meet season the rest of the time is Dartmouth. So we train hard this week, and we'll rest a day or two next week. Still, Schnur does not want his Quakers to look too far ahead. "Does that mean we're going into Navy with the expectation to lose? No," Schnur said. "We're going to go in and compete great this week. They're going to be tired also. It'll be pretty fair." Schnur's swimmers are pumped as well. "We're so ready for Navy," Penn junior captain Cathy Holland said. "We're ready to get up and race. That's what we've done the last couple weekends." Penn and Navy have had one common opponent so far this season. The Midshipmen beat Army at the beginning of December by a scant four points, while Penn defeated Army by 40 last week. But as anybody familiar with the Army-Navy football game knows, that rivalry is unique. Thus, the two bestings of the Cadets may be like apples and oranges. "We beat Army by more than they did, but their dual meet was a different type of meet, because they get up for it more. Navy-Army's their biggest meet of the year, so the times are unrepresentative," Schnur said. One factor that may hinder the Quakers' performance tomorrow will be the fact that Navy's pool dimensions are based on meters, whereas the dimensions of Penn's Sheerr Pool are based on yards. All of the events in tomorrow's meet will be in meters, which means that some events will be longer or shorter than what the Quakers are used to. "It's a tougher meet," Schnur said. "That will be a different dynamic that the women will have to deal with, the fact that we're swimming meters and not yards this week. They only have a meter pool. U.S. Government dollars at work." A metric event that the Quakers are used to competing in is diving, and in this area they will enjoy the return to action of sophomore Kathie Dykes, who won the one-meter and three-meter diving events last Saturday against Army. Dykes was absent from competition last semester to concentrate on her studies, and her return should put some more points on the board. A natural diver, she will complement the valiant freshman Sue Breslin, who began diving for the first time ever last semester to help make up for Dykes' absence. "Sue was filling in and really came through for the team all first semester," Schnur said. "She barely lost to the two Army girls. She was right there with them. It's nice to have Kathie back also. She's a good diver and doing a good job for us." Penn has not beaten Navy in several years, but the women's team is noticeably stronger than in years past, which means that Navy may be in for more of a fight tomorrow. "It's going to be much closer of a meet for us," Holland said. "[We need to] just swim as hard as we can, knowing we've been putting in all this training." "Two or three years ago, they were way better than we were," Schnur said. "The balance of power has shifted greatly. We're much closer. If we don't win, it's going to be an awfully close meet."