W. Swimming hits .500 with Bison bashing

In Saturday's very first event, the 200-yard medley relay, a mere hundredth of a second was the margin of defeat for the Penn women's swimming team (6-6). In its regular season finale against visiting Bucknell, however, this was just one more chance for a comeback by a comeback team in a comeback year. But unlike the massive come-from-behind drives that led to victory at Dartmouth last weekend and fell short at Navy two weeks ago, the Quakers wasted no time in overtaking the Bison en route to a 170-112 victory. "I knew we'd come back," Penn coach Mike Schnur said. "The one thing that marks this team all year is their ability to come back. They haven't panicked all year when they lose in the early events. We came right back and Cathy [Holland] won the 1000 [freestyle] and then Devin [McGlynn] won the 200 [free] and that eliminated any of the momentum Bucknell had built up. We ended that momentum real fast." This is not to say that the Quakers feasted on tasty Bison meat for the rest of the meet. While Penn never again trailed after winning those early events, maintaining its lead required constant vigilance, as a scrappy but relatively shallow Bucknell hung tough with the Red and Blue until the very late stages of the meet. "We had to keep winning," Schnur said. "The whole meet was within 15 points the entire time, up until the 500 [free], 100 fly when we started to take charge. Our good training took over in the end. Last three, four events, we started taking charge in the end. But it felt great to not be losing. It was nice to be winning during the meet." Bucknell, led by coach Jerry Foley, had other things on its mind, as the Bison are preparing for next week's Patriot League championships. "Today was not a big emotional up for us," Foley said. "Emotionally, we're kind of keeping it all in for a week and a half from now." With the win, Penn finishes at .500 on the year, a giant leap for a program once notorious for its paucity of success. "It feels great," Schnur said. "We earned [the win] today. We beat a good team. Bucknell is pretty close to as good as we've beaten all year." Like many other coaches whose teams swam against Penn this year, Foley can see the improvement. "This year's [Penn] team by far is the best team I've seen in five or six years," said Foley, who faced the Quakers annually as an assistant coach at Army before taking the top spot with the Bison. "They swim as a team. They have great individuals, but they're really swimming well as a team. Kudos to the coaching staff." With the regular season behind them, the Quakers can now prepare for the Easterns -- the de facto Ivy championships -- three weeks hence. "I see a couple women who are really tired, who need to start resting," Schnur said. "But I also see some people who are setting up to swim fast. Devin McGlynn had her best meet of the season. Cathy Holland swam a lot better than she did last weekend. Katy Sanderson had a great 500 free, Kate Patrizzi had a great day, much better than last weekend. "We train a little bit more, then we start resting. We start working on our relay starts, working on getting their bodies recovered from all the hard work, we start to swim fast and start focusing on a more individual-based meet."