Penn men's swimming coach Mike Schnur is sick and tired of standing alone. Of all the men currently part of the Quakers' swimming program, Schnur is the only one who has ever beaten Columbia in a meet.
"It's about time we changed that," Schnur said.
The Quakers will have a chance to do just that on Saturday, when they host the Lions at Sheerr Pool at noon.
Penn (3-2, 0-2 Ivy) is coming off of a record-setting weekend at the Nike Invitational at Kenyon College, where it finished second and shattered many pool and team records. Columbia (2-2, 0-2) finished fifth of eight teams at Princeton's Big Al Invitational last weekend.
The Quakers will need to keep up the speed they showcased last weekend to win against Columbia.
"Columbia's a very good team, and for us to beat them, we can't be at our A minus game," Schnur said. "We have to be as good as we were last week or we will lose."
The victory may just lie in the hands of senior captains Pat Gallagher and Devon Carr. Both will race against Columbia's best swimmer, junior Hyun Lee, in the 100 freestyle and 100 butterfly, respectively.
"It's really fun to race a guy that's that good of a swimmer," Gallagher said. "That's why we're in the sport."
The captains, though, can't win the meet by themselves.
Penn will be counting on some young swimmers to help procure the victory, young swimmers who are quickly becoming veterans.
"They may not have known what they were doing the first couple of meets," Schnur said of his freshmen.
"But now they're ready to swim now. They've had an important meet, they've had a preparation meet, and now they're at a point where they can swim fast."
The freshman that could have the most impact is Kyle Yeager, whom Schnur called "pivotal." He will try to keep Lee out of the number one spot in the 200 butterfly on Saturday.
"We're really relying on Kyle to swim just as fast as he did last week at Kenyon," Schnur said.
The Quakers know they have an advantage in some races. Between the three backstrokers on the team, Yeager, Larkin Macdonald, and Brad Farris, Penn should come away with wins in the two backstroke events.
Sophomore James Fee is expected to win the distance freestyle events, the 500 and the 1000, and junior Chaz Maul "will win the 100 breastroke without too much trouble," according to Schnur.
A win over Columbia this weekend would mean a little something extra to the four Quakers' who will graduate in 2008.
They have lost to the Lions by a combined 242 points, an average of just over 60 per match. Last year's contest was decided by 43 points.
"As a senior, it would be nice to win the meet." Gallagher said of ending his team's streak of futility
"That would be something we'd remember when we're done with swimming."
