Undefeated Ivy Trio Set To Square Off

Having already taken down five Ancient Eight opponents this season, the Crimson women’s swimming team will try to leave its final two Ivy opponents in its wake this weekend.

Harvard (5-0, 5-0 Ivy) will take on Princeton (4-0, 4-0 Ivy) and Yale (6-1, 4-0 Ivy) Saturday at the annual HYP meet at DeNuzio Pool in Princeton, NJ.

The match-up is the Crimson’s last dual meet of the season, but it presents the first serious threat to Harvard’s undefeated record.

“This is absolutely our biggest meet so far,” Crimson coach Stephanie Morawski said. “We haven’t been really challenged by any of the other teams yet, so we’re excited.”

The Harvard team is coming off a blowout 177-66 victory at home last Saturday against Brown. In the meet, the Crimson claimed first place in all 13 events and had four swimmers, including co-captain Alexandra Clarke and juniors Katy Hinkle and Kate Mills, who were a factor in at least two wins or more.

“We have a very, very strong group where everyone can contribute,” senior freestlyer Christine Kaufmann said.

The Harvard swimmers will have to work together in order to defeat a strong Yale squad and the home team, Princeton, this weekend. The meet, which will consist of 16 events, requires nine victories to secure the overall win.

The Tigers, who have also remained unbeaten this season, are coming off of a big win against Dartmouth last Sunday. At that meet, Princeton beat the Big Green in 12 swimming events and placed no lower than second in any of the others.

The Bulldogs had a five-match winning streak of their own until falling to Navy last weekend in a 151-149 decision that was determined by the last race of the day.

At last year’s HYP showdown, the three teams battled it out at Blodgett Pool, resulting in split results for the Crimson. Harvard pummeled Yale 232-87 but lost to the Tigers 170.5-148.5.

“Last year when we competed against Princeton, their swimmers were rested and they got us in key areas,” Morawski said. “We didn’t win the meet, but on the events that we didn’t win, we went second, third, and fourth.”

In the dual meet format, the Crimson’s consistency and widespread talent wasn’t enough to get two wins, but it did bring to bear Harvard’s most powerful asset.

“The strength of our team truly lies in our depth,” Kaufmann said. “[Our opponents] have a few standout competitors that are very fast, but even if we’re not able to win every event, hopefully we’ll be able to get in there and get second, third, fourth again.”

Harvard’s depth will become especially important next month when it competes to defend its Ivy League title, and the Crimson will use Saturday’s meet to perfect its technique before the big end-of-season tournaments.

“We’re expecting to have some great races,” Morawski said. “Hopefully we’ll be fast, but we really hope that all the little things we’ve been working on all year will pay off: making sure that we’re holding our streamlines in the water, working our kicks off the wall, and those kinds of things.”

Harvard is looking to bring together a season of hard work before the ECAC and Ivy League Championships at the end of February.

“This is a great time to race some of the top swimmers in the league and see how we match up,” Kaufmann said.

Coach Morawski agreed that the HYP meet will be useful in seeing how the Crimson’s athletes can compete head-to-head against their opponents, but emphasized that the competition will rely on a cohesive effort by the entire roster.

“I expect my captains and my seniors to lead, of course, but we try to have every single person on the team have a role to step up and do something,” Morawski said. “If we win, it could be just because someone said something inspirational to someone else just before they got in the pool. Even if [a team member] doesn’t even swim in the event, they could help us win.”

—Staff writer Madeleine Smith can be reached at smith21@college.harvard.edu.