Swim teams both fall on weekend road trips

The old saying goes that the glass is either half full or half empty, depending on your point of view.

Obviously, Penn swimming coach Michael Schnur is an optimist.

Schnur was upbeat following the defeats of both the men's and women's swim teams over the weekend. The men's team fell 174-124, at Columbia. The women's team suffered a 239-60 loss in Boston to Harvard.

Despite the defeats, both teams are excited by the performances of their young swimmers so far this season. With many of their goals for first semester already achieved, the importance of last weekend's competition was decreased.

"We took it so lightly," Schnur said about the performance of the women. "I had six or seven of our best not even compete. [Freshman] Megan Carlin didn't even go."

"The women's team reached all of its goals for first semester. We're over .500. We're very satisfied. We kept a lot of them at home to study for exams, because that's the most important thing."

Facing a decimated Penn squad, the Harvard women had an easy time on Saturday. Penn's only victory came by default.

The men's team brought more athletes to the weekend competition against the Lions, and enjoyed more success.

Freshmen Pat Maloney and Yuchi Zhang went one-two in the 200-yard IM, capitalizing on the fact that Columbia swam the race as an exhibition. Junior Tyler Markman won the three-meter diving event and the 200-yard freestyle relay team of Devon Carr, Gallagher, Kevin Scott and Timmy Howett impressed Schnur with a time of 1:24:90, good enough to win the event.

"The guys had a lot of great swims, as fast as could be expected," Schnur said. "We're just not as good as Columbia. They're where we hope to be in two years. But it was an encouraging meet, our fastest."

Like the women's team, the men's team has a core of freshmen and sophomore athletes that should put the squad in line to compete in the Ivy League sooner rather than later.

"We're gonna be good in the near future," Schnur said. "[Devon] Carr's established himself as one of the best in the league. He had a great meet. He swam right at the times I was expecting."

Schnur was positively glowing about the performance of his relay team.

"It was the fastest unshaved 200 free relay that we've ever done," he said. "We're a couple of seconds away from a school record."

One reason that the statistical performances of the two teams was not overly impressive is the training regiment implemented by Schnur in the week leading up to the meets. At this point in the season, the emphasis is on getting into the best possible shape for the more important meets after Winter Break.

Most important is the East Coast Athletic Conference Championships Feb. 24-26.

With that in mind, Schnur will take both his teams down to Florida to train over the break from Dec. 29 to Jan. 7.

Because collegiate rules stipulate that a team must take part in competition when it travels more than 400 miles to train, the swim teams will take part in the Florida International Invite inMiami on Jan. 2.

This meet, like this past weekend's two meets, will act as more of a tuneup for the Quakers than a competition.

But once the league schedule gets going in January, the swim team hopes that all the hard work in December pays off.

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