W. Swimmers Solid But Not Satisfied

In sports, as the old cliche goes, there is sometimes victory in defeat. But don't tell the Harvard's Women's Swimming Team that.

The women swimmers (5-1, 5-1) put in two all-around solid performances this weekend at Blodgett pool in a narrow 143-157 loss to Princeton on Saturday and a convincing 135-91 win over Pennsylvania, but were in no way satisfied.

"Princeton's a real powerhouse in our league right now and we knocked the wind right out of them," women's swimming coach Maura Costin Scalise said. "In fact, their coach came up to me afterward and said that she thought that we were going to win until the very end.

"But don't get me wrong--my girls aren't satified," she added. "They wanted the win bad."

In total points, the Crimson actually beat the Tigers in the swimming category.

But in diving, Princeton took first, second and third in the one-meter competition and first and second in the three-meter competition to steal the overall meet.

"Their divers just blew us away," Scalise said. "They are extremely talented. That was the difference in the meet."

Despite the loss, Harvard managed to win seven of the meet's 16 events. Pacing Harvard was Kory and sophomore Greta Steffenson with two first-place finishes apiece. Kory won both the 200 breastroke (2:16.56) and the 200 I.M. (2:02.76), while Steffenson won 500 (5:05.13) and 1000 (10:25.37) freestyles.

Also garnering first-place finishes for the Crimson were junior Kristen Gately in the 50 freestyle (24.51); freshman Katie Liu in the 200 backstroke (2:04.53); and the 400 freestyle relay team of junior Valerie Gilson, senior Sabrina Corlette, senior Jen Chertow and Gately (3:32.22).

Harvard fared considerably better in Sunday's meet with Penn, a team at the opposite end of the league standings than Princeton.

"Penn's not really one of the better teams in the league--in fact they are one of the worst," Gately said. "But we did well considering we were pretty tired after the Princeton meet."

No individual statistics of the meet were available as of last night.

The Crimson will travel to Cornell this Friday in the last meet before the Eastern Championships February 24-26, where they are sure to run up against the Tigers again.

"We're beginning to taper a little more now and we're going to be shaved for Easterns," Scalise said. "With that, and solid performances all-around, I think that we will be able to beat them [the Tigers]. I don't think that my swimmers are ready to settle for anything less."