34th Street Magazine's "Toast" is a semi-weekly newsletter with the latest on Penn's campus culture and arts scene. Delivered Monday-Wednesday-Friday.
Free.
(See below for correction.)
For the short time after the official issued the command for quiet on deck, all was quiet at Princeton's Denunzio Pool.
"Swimmers, take your mark -- BEEP."
Sporting black metallic speedo goggles, then-Penn freshman Jessica Anders dove headfirst into the biggest race of her life in the first meet of her collegiate career.
Every eye on each of the Penn, Cornell and Princeton squads focused on the middle of the pool and the Big Red and Quakers 400 freestyle relay.
Focused on "The Race."
"I was, I guess, in a word, terrified," Anders said. "I just remember being kind of lost, being sort of depressed, not being able to breathe -- shaking."
Princeton had locked up the first Ivy League meet of the 1999-2000 season by a substantial margin and pulled its 400 freestyle relays from the lineup to set up the head-to-head matchup between Cornell's and Penn's best swimmers.
Winner take all.
For Penn, a victory by the relay foursome of freshmen Jessica Anders and Katy Sanderson and sophomores April Fletcher and Devin McGlynn would mean the team's first win in 42 Ivy League meets -- a span of six years.
For Cornell, it was just a matter of respect. Nobody lost to Penn. Ever.
Certainly no one from this team in particular.
[Dara Nikolova (left) and Will Burhop/DP File Photo]
When Mike Schnur was promoted from assistant to interim coach in the fall of 1999, he inherited a team cowering in the sewers of Ivy League swimming.
Changes needed to occur -- immediately. And they did.
Tougher practices, more stringent penalties for missing a workout and an overall attitude change.
Not to mention that Schnur's first recruiting class stepped on to the Ivy League scene and produced results immediately.
Sheerr Pool's record board saw a changing of the guard at the end of the 2000-2001 season as six records fell -- three from freshmen in individual events, three with freshmen contributing to relay teams.
And that leaves the immediate contributors who did not grace the record board. The Rachel Zappalortis who challenged the league's top butterflyers from the start. Ashley Rader -- who held the 100 breaststroke record for a time during the season before Jen Block took it back at Ivy League championships -- gave Schnur a threatening breaststroke leg of both the 'A' and 'B' medley relay no matter who he decided to insert.
"Every year, you could kind of feel it in the air," current assistant coach Cathy Holland said. "It's just something that continues to grow."
[Will Burhop/DP File Photo]
Anders opened "The Race" with a season-best 53.76 in the first 100 freestyle leg of the 400-yard relay -- .11 better than her individual second-place finish in the 100 freestyle earlier in the meet.
More importantly, however, it was .47 faster than Cornell's first leg of the relay.
"When the last swimmer dove in...we knew she would win and they had no chance of catching up," said school-record holder Kate Patrizzi, a current senior who quit the team this year because of complications with requirements in the nursing school.
She was right.
Sophomore Devin McGlynn touched the wall to finish in 3:34.72 and the Penn swimmers immediately grabbed each other in celebration.
Tears flowed forth from the Penn side of the deck.
"We turned around and people had tears in their eyes and huge smiles on their faces," current senior Sarah Nessler said. "I don't think we as freshmen grasped what that meet meant."
The Quakers won "The Race" by .51 and the meet, 153-145.
•
For Princeton freshman Chrissy Holland, the meet had been long over -- another Princeton win. Since then, the Tigers have reeled off 41 consecutive victories -- giving the younger Holland a perfect Ivy career.
This was more than a perennial routing of the laughing stock of Ivy League swimming -- this was a family affair.
Across the pool stood sister Cathy -- "the mother of all captains that could ever be," according to Anders -- pouring her soul into the results of the race.
With tears welling up in the eyes of some of the elder statesmen on the squad, the Penn women's swim team lined up to congratulate its competitors.
The exchanges of "good meet" held extra meaning than the usual casual handshake.
•
Last year, more freshmen surged onto the scene. Katie Stores nabbed three individual records and participated in three record-breaking relays.
Katie Frazee -- two and two. Erin Tompkins -- two relays.
Twelve total freshmen to the five juniors.
Junior Lauren Dawe filled her role as the team's second backstroker -- to freshman Frazee -- and finished nineteenth overall in the 200 back at Ivy Championships.
Anders marched into Penn and even as a freshman already was one of the premier swimmers in the Ancient Eight, shaking up the top team's lineups and medaling at her first Ivy League championships.
But the younger classes have nipped even Anders in her specialty events -- last year the junior placed 14th in the 50 free, barely qualifying for consolation.
The class has stuck around, though.
•
The Penn women's swimming team heads back to Denunzio Pool today where the future of the team started three years ago with "The Race."
Only one name remains in white lettering on the record board at Sheerr Pool from when this year's senior class arrived. Ten wins and a winning Ivy record was the goal at the beginning of this season -- 10-4, 4-3 the record.
Seniors Dawe, Nessler and Margaret Jones didn't take the bus with the team this year -- the team's young stars have replaced them.
Only in the lineup however.
"Yes, we used to have the prime spots on the relays and some of us have been replaced," Nessler said. "But to watch this team go from where we were our freshman year to where we are now -- where we are definitely a competitive force -- is amazing."
Correction
This article notes that Margaret Jones did not travel to Ivy League Championships this year. In fact, she did.
The Daily Pennsylvanian is an independent, student-run newspaper. Please consider making a donation to support the coverage that shapes the University. Your generosity ensures a future of strong journalism at Penn.