For Penn's senior women swimmers, this weekend is the one they have been training for their entire careers.
In swimming, the Ivy League Championships are all that matters. Every event leading up to them can be nullified by a strong showing at Ivies. After four years of leading the Red and Blue, today is the finale.
The Penn women's swimming team will be traveling to Princeton to compete in the 2004 women's Ivy League Swimming and Diving Championship. The team is taking its 17 best women to swim in the Super Bowl of Ivy League swimming.
The Quakers have a lot of women near the top in seeding, but the league championship often has very little to do with seeding and more to do with who is able to step up and swim her best race at the most important meet.
"It's a crapshoot at this meet," Penn coach Mike Schnur said.
So far, the season has been a successful one for the Quakers. They come into the Ivies with a 7-5 record, including close losses to some of the best teams in the Ancient Eight.
"It's a nice opportunity to get a little revenge, especially to Yale," Schnur said. Penn lost to the Elis by a point in an agonizingly close meet just a few weeks ago.
Penn also suffered narrow losses at the hands of Brown and Harvard, and the Quakers hope to take advantage of their opportunity to improve their standing in the Ivies.
Penn's objectives for this weekend are clear and modest.
"The goal for us this weekend is to improve our sixth-place finish and finish higher than we have before," Schnur said.
The Penn team is led by a sextet of sensational seniors who have been leading the Red and Blue for the last four years. The seniors competing this weekend, Jen Block, Megan Daney, Kathleen Holthaus, Ashley Rader, Anne Tudryn and Rachel Zappalorti, will need to carry the load for the young Penn team.
"The same women who swam fast last year are gonna have to lead the way," Schnur said.
The team Schnur is taking to Boston features six freshmen, who, although talented, cannot be expected to make a huge splash in such a pivotal meet. It will be all up to the upperclassmen to swim hard and improve on Penn's finish from last year.
Schnur is confident in the seniors' abilities.
"I expect the upperclassmen to keep swimming well," he said. "We have a good opportunity to swim fast here and break a lot of school and personal records."
No matter how the team finishes this weekend, it will be considered a successful season for the Penn women.
"I think our season was really good," Schnur said. "We swam really well, and we were within a couple points of picking up some more wins."
If Penn can step up this weekend and rise above teams such as Yale, it would set a winning precedent for the future.
Although Penn has had a good season, Princeton is favored to win its sixth straight Ivy League championship this weekend. But Penn still has an opportunity to continue its rise toward the top of the Ivies.
The men's backup team will also be competing this weekend at the East Coast Athletic Conference Championships in Pittsburgh, as the top swimmers prepare for the Eastern Intercollegiate Sprint League Championship next weekend at Princeton.
