The Penn men's swimming team is tired, injured and has a full slate of Ivy competitors this weekend.
The Quakers will travel north to New England to compete against Yale and Dartmouth in New Haven, Conn. tomorrow, before facing Brown the following day in Providence, R.I.
"It's going to be a tiring weekend," Penn coach Mike Schnur said. "We do it back to back to prepare them for Easterns."
In fact, the Red and Blue are using the entire weekend as preparation for the Championships scheduled for the last weekend in February.
"We're going to swim right through," Schnur said. "We're even going to have practice Sunday morning at Brown."
As the Championships approach, the Quakers have shifted their focus from their actual opponents and are using the weekend predominately as a means of gaining more experience.
Schnur plans to move some of the swimmers around to give them a chance to rest and to swim events they might not otherwise have the opportunity to swim.
"We're swimming some off events," Penn sophomore Brendan Lang said. "It should break up the monotony."
This will also give Schnur the opportunity to finalize the roster for the championship races.
Though the Quakers may not be focusing on the results of the meet, Penn is still hoping to save face against conference opponents.
Schnur is optimistic that his team will be able to defeat the Big Green, but feels that Yale and Brown will be too much for the Penn swimmers to handle.
"They have a couple of guys we just have no answer for," he said.
Penn will use the same lineup in the Dartmouth/ Yale meet that it has relied on throughout the season. However, the Quakers will have to look for different sources to produce points.
The Quakers' strongest events -- the distance freestyle races -- are Yale's strengths, as well. Consequently, Penn is hoping to do well in the shorter freestyle and the 200 yard breaststroke.
Last year, the Elis demolished the Red and Blue, 200-96, but Penn overcame Dartmouth, 177-99, in a tri-meet held at Sheerr Pool.
When the Quakers dive into Brown's pool on Sunday afternoon, they may be exhausted, but Schnur believes his swimmers can keep up with the Bears in some of the events.
"We'll give them a run in a few of the races," Schnur said. "We should be strong in the 500 [yard freestyle], the 200 butterfly and the 50 [freestyle]."
The last time the Quakers met Brown, they were defeated, 155-143.
"We had an amazing meet," Schnur said. "It was a great battle that came down to the last relay."
Though they know that it will be a long weekend, the swimmers are looking forward to the competition.
"It's going to be a really long weekend," Lang said. "Hopefully, we can put on our game faces and pull out some good times."
