Pair of dynamos on tap for W. Swimming

With the Ivy League Championships a little over a month away, the Penn women's swimming team has kicked its season into overdrive. "The team trained very hard all of Winter Break, and we have not let up," Penn coach Mike Schnur said. "Right now, our focus is the Ivy League Championships, and we're just going to be increasing our training to prepare." The grueling workouts will likely pay off this weekend as the Quakers host separate dual meets against a pair of powerhouse squads, Navy and Brown. "That's what dual meets are about -- stepping up when you're tired -- and I think the girls are up for the challenge," Schnur said. "I think the key to winning this weekend will be our depth. We may not win the event, but we'd better be second, third, and fourth." First on the agenda, the Quakers will face off against Navy (8-2) tomorrow. Though the Midshipmen are the defending Patriot League champs, the Quakers handily trumped them in last year's meet, 175-123. Slated to be without headliner Katie Stores, who continues to battle mononucleosis, Schnur hopes that co-captain Jessie Anders and Laura Hotaling will step up in the sprint events. "Navy is a pretty good team. They have four or five girls as good as our No. 1 , so I think they'll be a good challenge," Schnur said. The Quakers close the weekend with a dual meet against Brown on Sunday, who placed second at the Ivy League Championships last year. "We'll definitely be more tired on Sunday," junior Kathleen Holthaus said, "But it'll be good practice for the Ivy League Championships. Those are three days of non-stop competition." Juniors Jean Lee and Liz Daniels, an NCAA qualifier last year in the 50 freestyle event, lead a young Brown squad. The Bears are fresh off a Winter Break training trip to Naples, Fla. Early in the season, the Bears were decisively felled by Harvard, 170-130, a team the Quakers in turn defeated just as certainly, 179-131. While Princeton victimized both Brown and Penn, Brown's 160-125 defeat hardly pales in comparison to the Tigers' 213-84 thrashing of the Red and Blue. The Brown squad has not seen intercollegiate competition since the Princeton meet in late November. "They were not well-prepared at the beginning of the season, but Brown has done nothing but train since then," Schnur said. "We can't underestimate them. We haven't beaten Brown in a long time, and we'll have to really step up." With a record of 0-2 this season, the Bears will be hungry for a win this weekend. "Brown has some good swimmers, but they haven't been as strong as in previous years," Holthaus said. "They are not out of our reach. We don't need to think like that this year."

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