W. Swimming blitzed by Ancient Eight foes

Heading into the weekend with three consecutive wins, the Penn women's swimming team had good reason to believe that it could walk into New Haven, Conn. and snatch a victory over a heavily-favored Yale squad.

And under different circumstances, the Quakers might have been able to emerge with a win. But Yale had already begun to taper for next week's highly anticipated Princeton-Harvard tri-meet and were well-rested for Saturday's matchup.

Swimming their best times of the season, the Elis cruised past visiting-Penn, 162-99.

The Quakers, however, beat Dartmouth, 192-103, in the tri-meet.

"We swam the best we could, we just weren't quite good enough," Penn coach Mike Schnur said. "When they swim their hearts out like that and swim their best times, there's nothing we can do about it. There's no defense in swimming."

Freshmen Katie Frazee and Katie Stores both swam non-rested personal bests during Saturday's tri-meet. Frazee took first in the 100 yard backstroke in 58.33 seconds, while Stores grabbed first in the 50 free in 24.42 seconds and first in the 200 free in 1:52.42 seconds. Stores also grabbed second in the 100 freestyle, while Frazee took second in the 200 backstroke.

"I was a little disappointed with my 100 [freestyle], but overall, I was very happy with my performance," Stores said.

The Elis' Susan Cooke stole the show during the meet, taking first in the 100 breaststroke, 200 breaststroke, and 200 individual medley.

Yet, the Elis were not only faster than Penn, their pool also stifled the Quakers.

Yale's Robert Kipheuth Pool not only features uncharacteristic "flat walls" at the end of each lane -- walls which do not have gutters -- but swimmers also had to venture up three stories to get to the warm-up pool.

Because of the distances between the two pools, Penn swimmers were forced to meticulously time how long they would need to return to the main deck -- Stores was able to swim only 25 yards in between her victories in the 200 and 50 free.

The two-pool dilemma also prevented a certain degree of cheering on the deck.

"When we were in the warm-up pool, we would grab anyone we could find from Penn and ask them what was going on [downstairs]," senior captain Devin McGlynn said. "It made it difficult, but I think we handled it pretty well."

Dartmouth, meanwhile, did not pose any threat to either Yale or Penn at any point during the meet -- the Big Green did not finish better than third in any event.

Following Yale-Dartmouth on Saturday, Penn traveled to Providence, R.I., to face Ivy League powerhouse Brown on Sunday. Brown has been the runner-up in the Ancient Eight to Princeton for the past three consecutive seasons.

"By swimming the two days back to back we were set up to fail," Schnur said. "It was a good opportunity to let some people swim different events."

Brown captured all twelve events, including six 1-2-3 finishes en-route to a 155-78 shellacking of Penn.

The Quakers will wrap up their dual meet season this Saturday against La Salle at Sheerr Pool.

Following that, the Red and Blue will concentrate completely on the Ivy League Championships at the end of February, where Penn will get a second shot at Yale.

"We definitely know that we can be as competitive as them when it comes to Ivies," Holthaus said.

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