Men's Swimming set for first Ivy battle

The season-opening tri-meet could not be more challenging for the young Penn men's swimming team.

The Quakers -- who boast 16 freshmen -- will take on Cornell and Princeton on Friday in Princeton, N.J.

Princeton -- last year's Eastern Intercollegiate Swimming League champion -- is once again poised to be in the upper echelon of the EISLs. The Tigers return 19 EISL swimmers and divers and six school record holders, including four swimmers who qualified for the NCAA championships last year.

Cornell finished sixth last season in the EISLs.

"Our main goal this weekend isn't to beat Princeton," Penn coach Michael Schnur said. "It's to beat Cornell."

Each of the last three years the Quakers have been able to squeak by Cornell while losing to the Princeton Tigers.

In last year's meets, the Quakers defeated Cornell, 132-111, but were demolished by the Tigers, 177-66.

The Quakers have not defeated Princeton in a meet since 1989.

This trend doesn't figure to end this season.

"Princeton has the potential to [become] one of the top-25 teams in the nation," Schnur said.

Beating Cornell looks to be a far more arduous task in this year's meet than in years' past.

The Big Red have added determination, stemming from recent death of sophomore swimmer Scott Paavola. Paavola, whose remarkable freshman season ranked him fourth all-time in Cornell history, died unexpectedly on Oct. 15 of a medical condition.

In response, the Cornell men's swimming team will dedicate this weekend's meet to Paavola, which includes the shaving of all team members before the event.

"We appreciate what Cornell is doing and are very supportive," Schnur said. "But we will have to watch out because you can swim much better with shaving than when you don't."

To have success this weekend, the Quakers will be looking for big things from their freshmen.

And the freshmen seem more than up to the task.

"We're really excited about [this weekend's meet]," freshman Michael Andersen said. "We definitely have a strong bunch of swimmers this year."

While Penn expects its freshmen to be successful, it still recognizes that it is putting a tremendous burden on the young group.

"Sometimes it's scary that there is not one event that we don't have a freshman competing for us," Schnur said. "We will be living and dying by how well the freshmen perform."

But ensuring success this weekend for Penn will not be the responsibility of the freshmen alone. The Quakers are also led by two bonafide senior captains -- Spencer Driscoll and Kevin Pope -- who are pretty accomplished swimmers in their own right.

Driscoll, a two-year EISL finalist in the 200 butterfly, also is the team's fastest individual medley swimmer. Pope will try to repeat as EISL finalist in the 100 backstroke this year.

The seniors recognize that the Quakers will be counting heavily on their guidance and performance in the opening weeks of the season.

"It's important that the senior swimmers on the team step up and assume leadership roles for the young freshmen," Driscoll said.

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