The Penn women's swim team fell to the heavily favored Richmond Spiders, 188-112, on Saturday. The meet was the first for Penn and although the score was one-sided, the meet showed the potential of the young squad.
Richmond is "one of the best teams on the East Coast right now," Penn coach Mike Schnur said.
The Quakers (0-1) were not only overmatched against a stronger opponent, but also were at a disadvantage since it was their first meet of the season. Richmond (2-2) had swum the night before against Rutgers and competed in two other meets before its matchup with Penn.
Richmond coach Max Kredich complimented the Penn team and added that "it's hard to get a feel for your team in the first meet."
Although the score wasn't close, Penn took several positives out of the meet, most notably the performance of its freshman class.
Schnur complimented the effort by the freshmen. Faced with a tough opponent and their first collegiate meet, the freshmen, led by Sarah Jeffers, rose to the challenge.
Jeffers was "our best swimmer" on Saturday, Schnur said. "She was awesome, winning the 200 fly."
Jeffers swam her personal best ever time in the first meet of her collegiate career. The upperclassmen were also impressed with the freshmen's performance -- particularly that of Jeffers.
"The freshmen put out a really good performance," senior Ashley Rader said.
Captain Kathleen Holthaus said it will be "exciting to see the freshmen in the future."
Senior Anne Tudryn collected the other Penn victory, finishing first in the 200 breaststroke and second in the 100 breaststroke. Top performances were turned in by junior Katie Stores, who placed second in both the 200 free and the 100 fly. Freshman diver Kate McArdle, who was the top Penn diver for the meet, finished second in the three-meter competition and third in the one-meter.
However, according to Schnur, the results were less important than the potential Penn showed.
"We need to improve, we're nowhere near where we'll be in January, but we'll get better," Schnur said.
That sentiment was shared by his swimmers.
"All the training we've done really shows we'll be ready to go in a couple weeks and at the end of the season," Holthaus said.
Rader commented that this meet was a perfect way to "get the first-meet jitters out of the way."
Her coach agrees.
Schnur saw "a lot of good things to build on" and "a lot of good swims," but he knows the team is far from reaching its potential.
Although the meet did not end in a victory for Penn, Schnur commented that outside of Princeton, "in the Ivies you don't run into teams with swimmers like Richmond."
