While the Quakers held off the Big Red, they couldn’t quell the Tigers’ wrath.
Penn women’s swimming and diving suffered its first loss of the season to No. 25 and defending Ivy League champion Princeton in Ithaca last Saturday. However, the Quakers walked away with a decisive victory against Cornell, putting up a season-high 206.5 points in the process.
Sophomore freestyle/butterfly specialist Kayla Fu led the charge once again with victories in the 100-yard freestyle and 100 butterfly, finishing less than a second off the NCAA Division 1 standard qualifying times in both events. She also finished runner-up in the 50-yard free in a season-best 22.81, getting barely out-touched at the wall by defending two-time Ivy League champion Princeton backstroke/freestyle/butterfly specialist Sabrina Johnston.
Freshman back/fly specialist Brianna Cong picked up an individual victory in the 200 back in a blistering 1:55.17, beating the field by over two seconds. Cong touched second in the 100 back but improved from last week by over a second to finish in an all-time personal-best 53.58. Cong’s 100 back performance on Saturday was a mere hundredth of a second behind the program record set in 2018.
The Quakers started off the meet with a third-place overall finish in the 200 medley relay, consisting of Sheerr Pool record holder team of sophomore Amy Qin, junior Kate Handley, senior Amber Smith, and Fu.
Promising performances followed in the 1000 free, which saw senior captains and 2025 NCAA Division 1 National Championship qualifiers Sydney Bergstrom and Anna Moehn crack 10 minutes for the first time this season to land in second and third place overall.
The distance squad stayed strong for the 500 free with Bergstrom and fellow senior captain Anna Boeckman breaking five minutes for the first time this season. Moehn led the charge with a second-place finish behind Princeton individual medley/freestyle/butterfly specialist and distance dynamo Chloe Kim.
Junior individual medley/back/free specialist Katya Eruslanova put points on the board with a second-place finish in the 200 free and two third-place finishes in the 200 IM and 200 back.
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Junior breaststroker duo Meredith Holcomb and Handley put up season-best performances to finish runner-up in the 200 breast and 100 breast, respectively. The only other runner-up finish of the meet came from sophomore Margaret Hu in the 200-yard butterfly, where the Canadian edged out Second-Team All-American Dakota Tucker at the wall.
Although Penn might not have come away with a victory against Princeton, they walk away with a season-best score and some personal-best performances.
The Quakers will head to the Tigers’ home turf next weekend for the Big Al Invitational, where they hope to defend their title.
