Crimson’s Bid for Perfection Spoiled

It was an all-for-one mentality at Blodgett Pool this weekend for the Harvard women’s swimming and diving team, but in the end, the team effort fell just short.

Powered by a few individual stars, Princeton (6-0, 6-0 Ivy) held off the Crimson (6-1, 6-1), 170.5-148.5, in head-to-head competition at the annual HYP double-dual meet.

Harvard handily beat Yale (5-4, 3-3), 232-87.

“We swam absolutely the best that we could swim,” Crimson coach Stephanie Morawski said. “We had a game plan and we executed it. You can’t control what the other team does.”

Harvard got individual wins from sophomores Kate Mills and Katy Hinkle and freshman Meghan Leddy, and despite often getting three or four swimmers to the wall before the Tigers’ second finisher, the sheer volume of Princeton wins was too much to overcome.

“Anyone who was watching the meet saw…that we were a team,” Morawski said. “Swimming as fast as we did and staying that close to Princeton without getting the wins—that was the group effort.”

The Crimson’s distance freestylers exemplified that group effort. Though Tiger Alicia Aemisegger, who earned All-American honors in three events at NCAAs last year, easily won both the 500-yard and 1000-yard freestyle events, Harvard took the next four spots in each event.

Junior co-captain Alexandra Clarke, sophomore Christine Kaufmann, junior Katie Faulkner, and freshman Catherine Zagroba made up the Crimson’s distance corps.

“In my four years [at HYP] I’ve never seen a team come together and have so much energy,” co-captain Kelly Mooney said. “It was fun to see the middle-distance and distance swimmers feeding off of each other and doing what it takes to get best times and score for our team.”

Mills had another typically outstanding meet, setting a new school record in the 200-yard freestyle on Friday night. Her time of 1:47.42 put her in second place behind Princeton freshman Jillian Altenburger and earned her an NCAA “B” cut.

Mills won the 100-yard butterfly in 55.52, made another “B” cut in the 200-yard butterfly (1:58.57), and anchored Harvard’s winning 400-yard freestyle relay team.

Hinkle led an all-sophomore sweep of the 50-yard freestyle, winning the race in 23.45. Ali Slack (23.74) and Laura Murray (24.15) followed, with classmate Holly Furman (24.29) placing fifth.

Leddy and fellow freshman Margaret Fish went 1-2 in the 200-yard backstroke, touching the wall in 2:01.58 and 2:03.41, respectively. Junior Kay Foley was fourth in 2:05.86.

Harvard’s final win came in the meet’s last event, the 400-yard freestyle relay, and was another top-two sweep for the Crimson. Hinkle, Murray, freshman Ali Lightbourne, and Mills finished in 3:24.89, and the team of Slack, Furman, freshman Monica Burgos, and Fish placed second with a time of 3:28.74.

“I think we ended on a great note, winning the last relay,” Mills said. “They only gained two points on us in one day—we’re not going to give up just because we’re 20 points behind. We’re ready to see them again at Ivies.”

Junior Sophie Morgan also put up some impressive performances, coming out of the third heat to take second (55.57) in the 100-yard butterfly. She was third in the 200-yard butterfly and fourth in the 200-yard individual medley.

“She went out there and raced everything and just decided that she was going to do it,” Morawski said. “It was just really nice to see her swim so fast right now.”

Though this weekend’s loss brought an end to the Crimson’s campaign for an undefeated dual-meet season, the team’s focus is now squarely on the Ivy League Championships at the end of this month.

With the different scoring format of a championship meet, Harvard’s deep pool of talent just may be enough to overtake the Tigers’ superstars.

“We’re more confident because if the meet was scored the way the Ivy meet is scored, we would have won,” Mooney said. “The Ivy meet favors depth, so we’re going into Ivies knowing that we can win and [we’re] very comfortable as the underdogs, ready to chase.”

“We have unbelievable depth and as such it would have been nice to win today, but you pick and choose what your focus is,” Morawski said. “They want to be Ivy League champions, and that’s what we’re going for.”

The Crimson will be back in the pool on Feb. 13 for a final tune-up against cross-town rival Northeastern.

—Staff writer Kate Leist can be reached at kdleist@fas.harvard.edu.