Quakers stifled by Ivy foes

With only a pair of dual meets left before the much anticipated Ivy Championships, the Penn men's swimming team suffered two crushing blows at the hands of Yale and Brown, and barely squeezed by a mediocre Dartmouth team.

"We can't let this scare us," Penn senior captain Russell Zuckerman said. "It's very easy to get discouraged now."

In Saturday's tri-meet, the Quakers were slaughtered by the Elis, 170-68.

"They're on a different page than we are," Penn coach Mike Schnur said. "They swim their biggest meet next week."

The Elis will face Harvard and Princeton next week, so they have been reducing their practice time in order to be rested for the meet. The Quakers, in contrast, have been training right through without any rest.

The Red and Blue were able to squeak out a win against Dartmouth, with the victory hinging on the final race -- the 400 yard freestyle relay.

"We had to win to win the meet, which was actually very surprising," Zuckerman said. "Dartmouth is consistently the worst team."

The relay team was composed of Zuckerman, sophomore Eric Hirschhorn, and freshmen Nate Bagnaschi and Jeff Organisciak. They finished in 3:10.15, less than a second in front of the Big Green.

In addition to their win in the 400 yard relay, the Quakers strongest events were the butterfly, breaststroke, and distance freestyle.

Penn freshman Chris Perez placed fifth in the 500 yard freestyle in a time of 4:43.77.

"He was probably the best swimmer of the day," Schnur said.

The Quakers earned a number of points placing second and third it the 200 yard butterfly. Sophomore Brenden Lang finished in 1:55.54 and junior Nate Pinney finished in 1:56.49.

Though it may have been difficult for the Red and Blue to defeat Dartmouth, Schnur feels that his team benefitted from Saturday's competition.

"They gave us a great run," he said. "It was fun, a very competitive meet."

The results of Saturday's meet may have been disappointing, but the competition on Sunday was dismal at best. The Bears demolished a tired Penn squad, 134-93.

"They were just too good for us," Schnur said. "They're a very, very good team."

The swimmers were disappointed with their performance as well.

"We didn't swim as fast as we normally would have been expected to swim," Zuckerman said. "We swam much faster last year."

The swimmers attribute this change to the difference in Schnur's training philosophy.

In past years the team has put more focus on the dual meets, while this season, they are concentrating on the Ivy championships.

The Quakers will face La Salle this weekend at home.. Once again, the swimmers will not rest for the races. However, Penn expects to be able to defeat the Explorers.

"We just have to go out there and swim our own meet," Schnur said.

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