Aquawomen Drub Dartmouth, 103-37

The Harvard women's swimming team returned from Puerto Rico early last week tanned and tired. So for a change of pace Coach Maura Costin Scalise placed most of her swimmers in unfamiliar events in the squad's meet with Dartmouth at Blodgett Pool Saturday afternoon.

But despite the changes, the Crimson found little difficulty in remaining unbeaten with a 103-37 romp over the Big Green.

Harvard (5-0 overall, 3-0 Ivy League) was never seriously threatened by the visitors from Hanover, N.H., as the Crimson captured the first eight events and never looked back.

In all, Harvard won 13 of 16 races, with two of the other three going to Dartmouth only because the victorious Harvard swimmer entered the event unofficially.

Fun in the Sun

Costin Scalise was pleased not only `with the meet, but also with the 10 days spent training in Puerto Rico over the Christmas break.

"A meet like this is very hard to swim," said Costin Scalise. "We had a great training trip that brought the team together, but most of the team is very tired from the yardage. Still, it is nice to see that we can switch to off-events and still win."

Junior Michelle Engh proved to be the only Crimson swimmer with two individual victories in the meet, as the California native took both the 200 and 500-yd. freestyle races.

Sophomore Linda Suhs and freshman Mary Quinn also led the Crimson effort, each swimmer claiming one individual and one relay event. Suhs gained first place in the 100-yd. backstroke, while Costello snagged the top spot in the 200 butterfly.

Suhs and Quinn also combined with sophomores Lani Nelson and Karen Schneider to earn the 200 medley relay victory.

Freshman Kaari Reierson cut six full seconds off her best time in the 1000 freestyle, and her winning time of 10:19.69 was only one second off the school record in the event.

Three other Harvard freshmen picked up individual victories in the contest. Mia Costello finished first in the 100 breaststroke, Nina Anderson took the 50-yd. freestyle and Jenny Meyer won the 200 breaststroke.

Spohomore Stacey Moran finished first in the 100 butterfly with a time of 1:03.17. In the meet's final event, the 400 freestyle relay, Tina Diekmann, Elaine Sang, Tara Gustillo and Jill Citron combined for the Harvard victory.

Sophomore Jenny Greene's winning streak on the diving boards came to an end Saturday--sort of. After taking the 1-meter competition to extend her streak to nine straight, Greene earned enough points to take first on the 3-meter board, but she was entered unofficially.

Meanwhile, freshman Lisa Reed was able to claim the actual 3-meter title with her score of 229.35 points. Sophomore Lisa Pierce took the second spot on the 1-meter board, but also dove unofficially on the 3-meter.

Study Break

The meet was the first and final one in the month of January for the squad, as the team will take a three-week break for finals before resuming its Ivy Legue slate on February 3 against Yale, also at Blodgett Pool.

The real test for the Crimson should come later in the month of February, when it takes two trips down to Princeton and Penn. Should Harvard emerge from those two contests unscathed, the chances for a first-ever undefeated season and a second-straight Ivy League championship would be very good.

"Penn and Princeton will both be very tough meets," Costin Scalise said. "Our biggest challenge now will be to balance exams and workouts, as well as keeping everybody healthy."