M. Swimming gets first win against Army

Typically after training trips, distance swimmers perform better than sprinters because of the increased yardage they cover in practice. Sprinters, meanwhile, get beaten down differently, relative to their specialties during the intense practices. Given the Quakers training trip to Boca Raton, Fla. for eight days during break, they would get a chance to test these assumptions. Correspondingly, the Penn (1-3, 0-3 Ivy) distance swimmers led the team to their first win of the season Saturday at Army, 131-110. "[The training trip] also hurts the sprint events," senior Kevin Pope said. "That's just the nature of those events. The sprinters swim less yardage when they're training a lot so their swims are going to hurt a lot more. I'm thrilled to get a win." The Quakers began the meet in dominant fashion, by finishing one-two-three in the 1000 freestyle behind finishes by Pat Maloney in 9:47.20, Matthew Blaszko and Michael Anderson. "We were so beat up over training trip," Blaszko said. "Even though we didn't have the greatest swims because we were tired, we were still able to get a win." Penn finished one-two-three again in the following event, this time the 200 freestyle with Eric Hirschhorn in 1:43.24, Shaun Lehrer and Nate Bagnaschi. But Army kept the meet close with strong finishes in the diving and sprint freestyle events as well as first place finishes in both the 200 medley relay and 200 freestyle relay. Penn also grabbed one-two-three-four in the 200 butterfly with finishes by Pat Maloney in 1:53.49, Brendan Lang, Spencer Driscoll and Evan Jellie. "We were really able to dominate some events," Pope said. "That's really the events that the training trip is really good for. That's what the training trip is all about." In addition to getting their first win of the season, the Quakers defeated Army for the fourth consecutive year. Before this year's senior class, however, Penn had a 42-year losing streak against the Cadets. "Before my class came to Penn, the team had a hard time swimming against Army," senior Chris Miller said in an e-mail. "Our class changed all that. So beating them showed us that we could swim even though we were tired, having just come off training in Florida for eight days, and that we could win by a substantial amount as well." While training in Florida, the Quakers placed second at the Florida Atlantic University Invitational behind No. 25 University of Washington. In addition to cold weather on the day of the meet, the Quakers did not expect to swim particularly well because of the extreme practices during break. "Time-wise, no one did that well," Blaszko said. "But we weren't expecting to. I think just to get second was impressive especially because some of the teams we were up against. Even though some of the teams were beat up, it was really positive." With the win and the most intense training of the season behind them, the Quakers will compete in three meets in three days this weekend against Notre Dame, Navy and Brown. "As far as this weekend is concerned, it's going to be a bloodbath," Miller said in the e-mail. "Three straight meets against three amazing teams is going to be really tough, but I am confident that even if we don't win them all, we will have some really, really fast times to show for it, and will set us up for a solid meet at [the Eastern Intercollegiate Swimming League Championships]."

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