Aquawomen Grab Two Triumphs, Overpower Columbia, Kenyon

Saturday's women's swimming meet at Blodgett Pool was billed as a "double dual meet" featuring Harvard, Columbia and Kenyon. It was more like a double drowning, with Harvard doing the honors.

The Crimson blew Columbia out of the water by a score of 86-52 and sent Kenyon back to Ohio by a 107-31 count.

The margin of victory could have been worse. With four events to go, Harvard Coach Maura Costin-Scalise mercifully called off the troops and entered the Harvard swimmers in exhibition categories so that they would not add to the landslide totals.

The defending Ivy League and Eastern champions also sent out the all-freshman quartet of Courtney Chubb, Ruthie Tanenbaum, Jenny Moyer, and Stephanie Wriede in the final event, the freestyle relay. The four rookies were out-touched at the end, finishing in second place.

"We swam better this year than at this time last year," Costin-Scalise said. "We've really been gearing toward the Invitational next week."

Now 3-0 on the season, the Crimson will host the seven-team Harvard Invitational meet next weekend.

Harvard nabbed the top two spots in four different events, including a one-two-three sweep of the 100-yd. butterfly by Chubb, Wriede and senior tri-Captain Karen Schneider.

The Crimson lineup had as many stars as the sky on a clear night, and tri-Captain Linda Suhs was the north star. The senior sprinter led one-two finishes in both the 50 and 100-yard freestyle events and anchored the first-place 200-yard medley relay team of Sheila Findley, Mia Costello, Nina Anderson and Suhs.

Another Crimson standout was distance swimmer Stacie Duncan. The freshman from Simi, California left the field in her wake, finishing the 1000-yard freestyle in 10:20.78. Classmate Jenny Moyer placed second in 10:31.59.

Duncan also took the 500-yard freestyle, although she was entered in the exhibition category.

"The coach obviously has a reason for having you swim exhibition, so you should do your best," Duncan said. "If you're feeling good in the water, nothing bothers you."

In the most exciting race of the day, junior Jenny Meyer trailed Kenyon's Kristie Stacy through 150 yards of the 200-yard butterfly. Meyer then shifted into overdrive and surged past Stacy to take the victory in 2:09.93.

Senior tri-Captain Janice Sweetser took the 200-freestyle in 1:54.71. Mia Costello out-touched Kenyon's Jeannine Gury by six-tenths of a second to win the 100 breaststroke in 1:07.04. Kaari Reierson captured the 200 backstroke in 2:08.53.

Columbia's only bright spots were Anna Martens and Julie Black. Martens captured the 200-yard individual medley and the 100-yard backstroke. Black won both diving events, out-dueling Harvard freshman Julie Pawlak.

The Harvard Invitational next weekend will include national opponents such as Georgia, Arkansas, Kansas and Air Force.

"It wasn't too long ago that they didn't consider the Ivy League to have great women swimmers," Costin-Scalise said. "Next week we need to swim much faster than we did today, which I think we will."