Penn women's swimming finishes fourth at Ivies

For many years, Ivy League swimming has been just a three-horse race between Harvard, Princeton and Yale. But at this year’s Ivy Championship meet at Harvard, Penn women’s swimming showed the rest of the league that it isn’t far behind.

The Red and Blue finished fourth overall with 952 total team points, the most the team has registered at Ivies since 2008. This year’s finish was also the highest by the Quakers since the team registered three consecutive fourth-place finishes at the Championships from 2009 to 2011.

“The thing that separates our team this year from the ones we have had the last few years is that all 20 girls we brought to the meet scored points,” coach Mike Schnur said. “In the past, we have usually been carried by four or five girls who would score all of our points, but this year we had every last swimmer and diver contribute important finishes and that is phenomenal to see.”

Ironically, Penn’s only top finish of the three-day meet came in the first individual event on Thursday, when freshman Virginia Burns came out of nowhere to win the 500-yard freestyle event. Burns — who entered Thursday’s meet with a personal best time of 4:54.43 — swam a 4:49.72 in the preliminary round, before dropping another four seconds to win the final in 4:45.67.

With that race, Burns became only the seventh female swimmer in program history to be crowned an Ivy Champion.

“Watching Virginia race had to have been one of the most satisfying moments I’ve had as a coach,” Schnur said. “To see her drop almost 19 seconds from where she started this year and actually win an event that she still has really no experience in is a coach’s dream.

“She really just set the tone for us on that first day and really got everyone excited, and that allowed us to go on and have a great weekend of racing.”

Thursday’s races also saw sophomore Rochelle Dong break her own school record in the 50-yard freestyle en route to a second-place finish overall.

Fellow sophomore Ellie Grimes had a terrific weekend of racing for the Red and Blue, as she broke two school records in the 200- and 400-yard individual medley finals. Grimes’ record time in the 200 IM was good for fourth place in the league, and she later reached the podium in third place after swimming the 400 IM in 4:17.91.

“Ellie [Grimes] scored more points at this championship event than any swimmer we have ever had besides Fortin, and that’s without even winning an event,” Schnur said. “It’s a testament to how hard she works every single day, and she is just great to watch because she never ever loses her extreme belief in herself.”

Penn managed to finish on the podium in one relay event, as senior Taylor Sneed and sophomore Haley Wickham, combined with Dong and Burns, placed second in the 400-yard medley relay. The Quakers’ time of 3:39.74 fell just short of Yale’s relay team, which broke the pool record for the event.

While half of the women’s team still has yet to compete at the Eastern College Athletic Conference Championships this upcoming weekend, this year’s Ivy performance is sure to set Penn up well as it begins preparation for next year.

“While we are going to find it hard to replace our seniors this year, I think we are in a really good place going forward,” Schnur said. “If you look at how our underclassmen performed this weekend and combine that with the phenomenal recruiting class we have coming in, we are going to be a very strong team going forward.”

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