The Penn women’s swim team got to do its fair share of crushing this weekend — but not without getting crushed a bit itself.
On Friday afternoon, Penn hosted Cornell and Princeton at Sheerr Pool, splitting the meet with a 190-90 victory over the Big Red and a 165-113 loss to the Tigers.
After a season-opening victory against UConn last weekend, the Quakers had a tough week of practices leading up to their Ivy opener this weekend.
“We didn’t swim very fast today, we were pretty beaten up,” coach Mike Schnur said after Friday’s meet. “We had a really hard Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, so I expected this.”
Tired or not, the Red and Blue put competitive numbers on the board, especially from some of the promising freshmen in this season’s underclassmen-dominated team.
Freshman Annie McCotter dominated in the 500- and 1000-yard freestyle events with times of 4:59.26 and 10:09.62, respectively, and nearly eight-second margins over second place in both events.
Penn’s all-freshmen “A” team of Lauren Church, Catherine Yee, Rachel Astles and Emily Baturka also took third in the 200 medley relay, and freshman Megan Alexander took second in the 200 individual medley.
But the meet didn’t belong to just the freshmen for Penn.
Sophomore Christina Hurley took third in the 50 freestyle at 24.32 against the reigning Ivy League champion in the event. Junior Shelby Fortin just missed out on first place in the 100 and 200 freestyle events with times of 51.60 and 1:50.58, coming in less than a second after the Tigers in both events.
The Quakers are now prepping for Kenyon College’s Total Performance Invitational at the end of the month, which Penn has won the past three years.
“An invite’s more in their comfort zones,” Schnur said. “They’ll be fine.”
On the men’s side, there was a full house at Sheerr Pool on Saturday afternoon, with fans from Cornell, Princeton and Penn cheering on their teams.
The Quakers conquered the Big Red, 207-93, but came away with a 168-130 loss to the Tigers.
Freshman Chris Swanson came away with victories in both the 500 and 1000 freestyle events. Fellow freshman Kyle Yu came within tenths of a second of first and second place in the 100 breaststroke race at 57.56 and less than three-tenths of a second of first in the 200 breaststroke with a time of 2:04.66.
“The young guys are really stepping up,” Schnur said. “There’s a lot of depth there — it’s not just two or three guys. There are 14 or 15 freshmen and sophomores who are stepping up great.”
As for the veterans on the team, junior Rhoads Worster won the 100 butterfly with a time of 49.80, ahead of second place by more than a second. He nearly took first place in the 100 backstroke at 49.99.
“I think we’re swimming a lot faster than I thought we would at this point, and we’re certainly a lot faster than we were last year at this point,” Schnur said.
The men also turn to preparing for the Kenyon Invitational, an event the Quakers have won the last two seasons.
SEE ALSO
Penn men’s swim team moving on without Brendan McHugh
Penn swimming too much to handle for UConn
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