Women's swimming: Penn avenges tight loss by whaling Lions

Revenge is a dish best served in cold pool water, as the Penn women's swim team found out Friday.

The Quakers avenged last year's five-point loss to chief rival Columbia with a 187.5-112.5 victory in their home opener at Sheerr Pool.

Last year's meet came down to the final event, the 200-yard freestyle relay, with Columbia winning by three-hundreths of a second. This year Penn won that race, as well as 11 of the other 15 events.

The win "definitely gives us confidence for the rest of the season because we can say, 'Look how much we beat Columbia by. Imagine what we can do the rest of the season,' " Penn senior and tri-captain Stephanie Colson said. "Also, it gives us confidence going up against other close competitors like Brown and Yale, since now we know we can beat them."

The win will give the Quakers a mental boost going into their five-week winter training.

"The women will be happy because they won," coach Mike Schnur said. "Right now they're feeling good, they're feeling confident."

But according to Schnur, at the same time the onus is still squarely on the team to reach its full potential.

"We're not firing [on] all cylinders yet," he said. "We have a lot of talent on the team that isn't healthy yet or at the top of their game. If we get those women to their peaks, then we'll have a really good team second semester."

At least freshman Sara Coenen can lay claim to performing at the top of her game. Already the school recordholder in the 200 yard backstroke, Coenen broke two Sheerr pool records against Columbia: the 200-yard individual medley and the 100-yard backstroke.

"I was pretty excited to be able to [break the records] at home and get my name on the recordboard," Coenen said. "It was really good since it was in such a big meet."

Schnur could not help but be impressed by the commanding fashion in which Coenen broke the records.

"She dominated her heats," he said. "They were both really great swims. She's getting better at the 200 IM every single week."

In addition to Coenen's two recordbreaking swims, the 200-yard butterfly race was instrumental in leading the Quakers to victory.

"The 200 fly was key when we placed 1, 2, 3," Schnur said. "It was huge because we put in people that just battled. Our fly group is no more talented than Columbia's, . in the last part of the race they just dug down and won."

The entire team seemed to have this extra determination, as several key races were close Penn wins.

"Everyone really stepped up with their races," Colson said. "We just ended up touching them out almost every single time."

Against Columbia, they'll take it.

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