Though the score did not suggest it, its meet against Columbia was by far the men's swimming team's closest of the year.
Columbia defeated Penn 177-123 Saturday in New York, in a meet full of close races - most of which did not go the Quakers' way.
"It was unbelievable," coach Mike Schnur said. "I don't think we've ever had a meet where we lost so many close races."
Columbia (3-3, 2-2 Ivy) jumped out to a fast start by winning six of the first seven events, though each of those victories were decided at the touch.
The Lions edged out Penn (3-4, 0-4 Ivy) in the opening 200-yard medley relay by just 0.14 seconds. The trend continued as Columbia's Luke Fitzpatrick nipped Penn's Larkin Macdonald in the 100-yard backstroke by 0.17 seconds and Michael Nelson touched out Zach Glassman in the 100-yard breastsroke.
"We would have been right in the meet [except] for all those touch-outs in the beginning," Schnur said.
One of the most highly contested races in the first portion of the meet was the 200-yard butterfly, in which the top four swimmers were neck-and-neck the entire race until Columbia junior Cedric Cheung-Lau delivered a blistering final 50 yards to edge out Penn's Joseph Griffith by 0.16 seconds.
Junior Justin Reardon provided key victories for the Lions by winning both the one-meter and three-meter diving competitions. Senior Nick Corsano and freshman Aaron Levy took second in the events, respectively, for Penn.
The Quakers would rebound after the one-meter dive, however, by winning four of the next five races. Macdonald avenged his loss to Fitzpatrick by winning the 200-yard backstroke and Penn's Wei Ming Gan made up for his third-place finish in the 200-yard butterfly by winning the 100 butterfly.
"We made a great comeback," Schnur said. "We never gave up."
Columbia maintained an advantage, though, by taking the first three spots in the 200-yard breastsroke, and would eventually pull away by winning the final three events.
Schnur, though disappointed his team was unable to pull out some of the highly-contested races, was not discouraged by the losses.
"We made some mistakes - tiny things that cost us - but I certainly can't fault the effort," Schnur said.
Freshman James Fee gave a standout effort for the Quakers, sweeping the distance events by winning both the 500 and 1000 yard freestyle events.
One of the key match-ups coming into the meet was between Penn junior Pat Gallagher and Columbia senior Tobin White in several events. Schnur had said that Gallagher would have to take one of their three contests for his team to have a chance, and Gallagher did just that, winning the 100-yard freestyle.
White took the other two, however, edging out Gallagher in the 200-yard freestyle by 0.40 seconds and the 50-yard freestyle by only 0.08. It was just one more bang-bang play to go to the opposition.
The Quakers will try to make up for that eyelash of time during their training sessions in Florida over winter break before they head back into action on January 13 against Brown.
