Nothing motivates better than a rivalry, and for Penn swimming, an early season meet against Columbia has the Quakers primed to start the year off quickly.
On Friday, the women’s team will square off at Penn’s Sheerr Pool against the Lions in its first meet of the season, in what is sure to be a tight and tense contest.
“We have been focusing on this meet since the end of Ivies last year,” senior captain Lauryn Brown said. “There is certainly a rivalry that has been around for the past 10 years between our two teams. … This is a really great opportunity to put our best foot forward against a team that always tries to win every dual meet, and I want to see us win.”
“We are putting on our fast suits, they are as well and it’s just going to be a battle to see who comes out on top,” senior captain Taylor Sneed said. “I think though, that we are all very confident we can win and that would be really exciting for us.”
While the men will not take on Columbia for another week, they too have begun to feel the excitement and tension build around their contest with the Lions.
“Everyone just gets really excited over that first Ivy League dual meet, especially after last year’s race with Columbia, which was really intense,” junior Eric Schultz said. “Coach Schnur also has never won at Columbia as a swimmer or as a coach so he wants it too, so it would be great to go get that win up in New York.”
In addition to the Ivy dual meet, both the men and women will swim on Sunday at home against Connecticut, a meet that coach Mike Schnur also expects to be close.
“Both men’s and women’s programs are very evenly matched with Connecticut,” he said. “They have a few studs on their team, including a Bulgarian National Champion. But we have the depth to our advantage, and it should be a very close meet.”
In addition to revealing how deep this team truly is, Sunday’s race will also offer an opportunity to see how both programs have dealt with the loss of several elite seniors to graduation. In particular, the losses of Shelby Fortin and Rhoads Worster have left sizable gaps in the Quakers’ roster.
However, both programs are confident that they have the swimmers ready to fill those voids.
“There have just been so many more opportunities for people to step up and take on those larger roles, and I think that has been great for our team,” Sneed said. “We are no longer relying on just a handful of people but now everyone is relying on each other, and that has been great for team unity and bringing us together to focus on one goal.”
“We have a talented freshman class this year, including several distance guys who are going to be scoring points right from the get-go,” Schultz added. “I think that’s what we have to our advantage this year. We have guys who are ready to step up, and we are going to need them to step up and win big-time races.”
And fortunately for the Quakers, they don’t need to wait long to find out if they can win big-time races. Those races are already here.
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