In the midst of preparing for the Ivy League Championships in late February, the Penn women's swiming team suffered a defeat to Brown University on Saturday by a score of 153-90.
The loss gave the Quakers a 2-3 record against Ivy League opponents, which they will shortly be competing against for the league title.
After suffering his team's first lost of the new year, Penn coach Mike Schnur did not seem troubled in the wake of the recent defeat.
"At this point all that we are focused on are the Ivies," Schnur said, noting that this year's squad is the best he has seen in a while.
Senior Kathleen Holthaus shares the same focus as her coach, but also feels that the team's performance on Saturday may actually prove beneficial in the long run.
"This meet was a wake-up call that tells us that we still need to work hard for the rest of the season," she said.
After analyzing the results of the meet, Schnur determined that the team lived up to its expectations.
Since Brown is known primarily for its excellent short-distance sprint performances, the Quakers did not expect to finish highly in that category of the day's races.
They succeeded, however, in the long distance relays and other such events, but were not able to come out victorious overall.
"There were just more short distance races than long ones," Schnur said jokingly.
Holthaus, one of the team's top performers in Saturday's meet, took first place in the 500 yard freestyle and the 1000 yard freestyle, in which she was followed by two other Quakers.
Although the senior was not swimming as well as she had hoped at the outset of the season, Holthaus said that she now feels like she is really "hitting her stroke."
Just as her own abilities have steadily improved over the season, the Quakers as a team are on the rise as well.
"I definitely think we have the building blocks for a very successful team," Holthaus said.
Another one of the Quakers' key members who had an outstanding meet was sophomore diver Kelly Tek.
Coach Schnur was pleased with her performance -- her best of the season -- and noted that some of her scores were higher than those of the men's team's.
The Red and Blue will try to bring it all together on Jan. 24 when they host Yale and Dartmouth.
Holthaus noted that the Quakers have never beaten Yale during her Penn career.
The entire team is anticipating this matchup with two of its Ivy League foes as a prelude to the Ivy League Championships next month.
