W. Swimming looks to drown Bison at Sheerr

In the final meet for eight Quakers, Penn looks to crack the .500 mark. Mediocrity, for many teams, is a four-letter word. But the way things have gone for the Penn women's swimming team over the past ten years, finishing up with the same amount of wins as losses would be a welcome change. The Quakers (5-6) have a chance to do just that when they swim against Bucknell tomorrow at noon at Sheerr Pool in their final regular season meet. "To finish .500 after winning almost no meets in the last few years would be great," Penn coach Mike Schnur said. "It would be a real step in the right direction. It would show how hard these women have worked." For eight swimmers, this will be the final meet of the season, as Penn is only allowed to send a squad of 18 women to the Ivy Championships at Harvard later this month. Katie Kowalski, Michelle Wild, Mary Reilly, Marisa Crowell, Kate Peretti and Mary Schoenhaus are among those who did not obtain one of those 18 ultra-competitive spots. For seniors Jamie Taylor and Colleen Flood -- who were also not selected to the Ivy Championships squad -- this will be the last meet of their Penn careers. "I'm sure in a lot of ways those girls are at least somewhat disappointed [about not being selected to the squad]," Penn junior captain Cathy Holland said. With a successful finale against the Bison in mind, these eight have tempered training with rest. "They're resting this week, and they're shaving, and we're very hopeful they'll swim fast," Schnur said. "A lot of those women, even though they're not going to Ivy Championships, are very good swimmers and have worked very hard this year. And I really want to see it pay off with some fast swims [tomorrow]." However, those 18 who have been tapped to travel to Cambridge are training hard with the Ivies in mind, which means that a majority of the Quakers will be tired come noon tomorrow. "I know the girls are really tired, especially from the long bus trip we took this weekend," Holland said, referring to the road trip the Quakers took to Dartmouth and Brown. "That was pretty hard on us." Bucknell, one of the top teams in the Patriot League, will not be sympathetic. Schnur termed the Bison -- led by sophomore Abby Weaver, the ECAC Swimmer of the Week two weeks ago -- as "probably" better than Dartmouth. The Quakers barely defeated the Big Green last Saturday -- after being down nearly 45 points early in the meet -- for their second and final Ivy win of the season. "There's really no way to sneak around Bucknell," Schnur said. "You gotta take their strengths and our strengths and battle in the pool." He added that Bucknell's strengths are in its sprinters and backstrokers, but noted that Penn, which is going with its strongest lineup tomorrow, has more depth than the Bison. "Our top-10 women and their top-10 women are pretty darn similar," Schnur said. "The next 15 people on each team, ours are considerably faster, and that's where we're going to have to win the meet. "If we swim the way we did against Cornell or Army or Drexel or some of those teams, we will definitely win. If we're as tough as we were at the end of the Dartmouth meet, we'll win. If we swim the way we did against Columbia or Brown or some of our not-as-good meets, we're in a lot of trouble." Whatever happens tomorrow, Schnur maintains that the Quakers' ultimate focus is the Ivy Championships and not this weekend's collision with the Bison.

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