Harvard Stays Undefeated, Routs Brown

Before the Harvard and Brown women’s swimming teams met at Blodgett Pool on Saturday, there was little doubt who the better team was—one was undefeated, and one hadn’t won a meet since November.

When the meet’s final race was over, nothing had changed.

The Crimson (5-0, 5-0 Ivy) swept the Bears (2-5, 1-3 Ivy) Saturday to take a 177-66 victory in a meet where many of its swimmers were competing in events outside their specialty.

“I think we were really pleasantly surprised by the fact that we were able to win all of our races,” co-captain Alexandra Clarke said. “We put in a lineup where people weren’t swimming their best events.”

Clarke is a freestyler who won the 1000-yard event in last year’s Ivy League Championships. And while she won that race on Saturday—leading a Crimson sweep of the top four spots—she also took home the victory in the 100-yard butterfly.

“[Clarke] always races to win,” junior Katy Hinkle said. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen her race the 100 butterfly before, but she did a great job.”

Hinkle was arguably the brightest star in a meet where Harvard had many. The junior led the 200-yard medley relay squad to a victory in the first event of the day, as the Crimson defeated Brown’s second-place lineup by .21 seconds.

“I love the relays,” Hinkle said. “It’s not just about me.”

It was all about Hinkle in the 50-yard freestyle, which the junior won with a time of 23.92 seconds. Hinkle chose to compete in the event, which she considers to be one of her stronger races, in preparation for next weekend’s Harvard-Yale-Princeton meet and the upcoming Ivy Championships.

“[The 50-yard freestyle] is hard to do without practice because it’s so short,” she said.

Hinkle’s third victory came in the 200-yard freestyle relay, the last event of the day, in which her team knocked off the senior entry of Clarke, Natalia Festa, Katie Faulkner, and Sophie Morgan.

But the foursome, along with co-captain Kay Foley, wanted one more go-around on Senior Day, so all five of them competed in an unofficial exhibition relay at the end of the meet.

“It was just a fun way for them to finish,” Harvard coach Stephanie Morawski said.

Before the Senior Day meet, the five seniors were honored for their contributions to the team over the years.

“For the seniors, it’s been a long four seasons,” Clarke said. “It was nice in our last [dual] swim meet at home to be able to get the win.”

Among the Crimson’s accomplishments over the years was last year’s Ivy title—one Harvard will defend back in Blodgett in late February. The Crimson can only hope its next trip goes as well as this one did.

Junior Kate Mills won the 200-yard freestyle and the 400-yard individual medley, while classmates Holly Furman and Christine Kaufmann and sophomore Meghan Leddy also claimed individual victories.

The Crimson swept the diving events as well, as junior Jenny Reese won the three-meter dive and sophomore Leslie Rea led a top-four sweep on the one-meter board.

But Saturday’s meet was likely the last of Harvard’s drama-free victories. The pressure will increase exponentially in the coming weeks as Harvard takes on Yale and Princeton at the Tigers’ DeNunzio Pool. Like the Crimson, Princeton is undefeated, and Yale just surrendered a four-meet winning streak to Navy on Saturday. It was with these races in mind that Morawski decided to mix up the lineup.

“Our plan was to go in there with a little bit of an off lineup and try to have some really good races,” she said.

By switching people around, Morawski sought to increase the competiveness of the races, forcing her swimmers to pay more attention to detail.

“We were making sure people were doing the little things rights: don’t breathe from the flags, fire it in the wall,” Morawski said. “It was an opportunity for us to focus on technical details. Against Princeton and Yale, we’ll be able to not worry about little things—hopefully those will be automatic.”

—Staff writer Christina C. McClintock can be reached at ccmcclin@fas.harvard.edu