For Penn women’s swimming, cracking the top three at the Ivy Championships has been an elusive feat.
The Quakers, who have not reached the podium in the last five seasons, had last year’s hopes of finishing within the top tier thwarted by third-place finisher Yale.
While their fourth-place finish was an improvement from the previous year (fifth place) and Penn set seven school records at the event, the Red and Blue (5-6, 2-5 last year) are back this season thirsting for more.
“Our goal is to get second or third. We have set that up as a team goal,” sophomore breaststroker Laura Klick said. “I definitely think we have a really good shot of accomplishing that.”
Coach Mike Schnur noted the lineup will look very similar to last year’s, as the team did not graduate many women who were number one or two in their events.
“We’ve added some good freshmen, but we are still going to be relying on the same kids we did last year in a lot of cases,” Schnur said.
Specifically, Schnur views his senior class as a key to a successful season.
“Our senior women are fantastic and have done a wonderful job for us in the past, and they are training beautifully right now,” he said.
Klick, for one, is thankful for the senior guidance.
“I think the captains, seniors Amy Reams, Sara Coenen, and Stephanie Nerby have done a really, really good job,” she said.
“We have had great leadership in general. We have worked on getting the team a little more unified, and have been working hard in practice everyday, trying to stay relaxed about the season, and taking one thing at a time.”
This means first focusing on upcoming meets.
Schnur will be relying on a few juniors and sophomores in addition to the seniors when the Quakers open their season on Nov. 20 against Princeton and Cornell, both in Princeton, N.J.
“Cornell has improved a lot,” Schnur said. “They’ll close the gap on us a lot. I feel like we’ll close the gap on Princeton a little bit. It should be a pretty competitive meet.”
According to Schnur, Princeton, has already been to Florida for a week during fall break, where it did nothing but train. Despite the Tigers’ advantage, Schnur noted that the early season is just a stepping stone to the bigger goal of the Ivy Championships.
“What we do as the women’s program is we strive to get better as the season goes,” he said. “So whatever we do now, hopefully we’ll continue building on right through January and February.”
