The Penn men's and women's swim team will face off against unfamiliar faces this weekend at the second annual Kenyon Invitational.
A change from the usual Ivy competition, the Quakers will compete against powerhouses like Kenyon and Kansas.
Because the Invitational is scheduled the same way as the Ivy League Championships, with the preliminary events in the morning and finals in the afternoon, it gives both teams a good opportunity to prepare for the championships at the end of the season.
"We are definitely taking this more seriously than any other dual meet," said Mike Schnur, coach of both teams.
Penn and Kenyon are the two strongest teams on the men's side, with Penn winning last year's inaugural invitational.
Last year, Kenyon's women came out on top in a four-team field while Penn finished second. This time, Schnur expects the best team to be Kansas.
In preparing for this meet, Schnur has taken different approaches with the men and women. The women have been training hard, with practices held over the Thanksgiving weekend.
"I don't like to rest the women as much because when they do, they have a tendency to fall down for a meet," said Schnur. "I don't like to back the yardage off. The only pure rest is at the end of the season."
However, Schnur has given the men more of a break.
"We've had a lot of hard practices for past couple of months but the past couple of days, we've rested to try to be at our full potential," senior Chris Weitekamp said.
Schnur is going to put his swimmers in every event, including ones that are not normally offered in dual meets like the 1650 free, 800 free relay and 400 IM.
"We really want to swim the best seed times in the relays," Schnur said. "You want to be seeded in the top five or six teams [at the conference championships] and this is our opportunity."
The Quakers will be swimming in Kenyon's Olympic-sized pool, one of the fastest in the country. What makes the pool so "fast" is its depth (the deeper the better, because of decreased turbulence), the quality of the starting blocks and the thickness of the lane ropes, which lessen turbulence.
"The entire team shaved and tapered off for the meet, and even some of the girls shaved," Weitekamp said.
"We are really looking to swim our fastest times this season in this pool."
