Aquawomen Cruise Past Listless Bruins, 182-99

The Harvard women's swim team is sending an early message to its competition this year: Be prepared to eat wake.

Last night in Providence the Crimson (3-0 overall, 2-0 Ivy) thrashed Brown (2-2, 1-2 Ivy), 182-99, placing first in every one of the 16 events. The Crimson was coming off a successful three-day weekend at the Pitt Invitational where it easily knocked off six Eastern teams.

"We were a little tired, just a little off, but the swimming was still on," Harvard Coach Maura Costin Scalise said. "It was a little difficult jumping right back in and swimming on Tuesday after racing on the weekend, but we still swam well."

Harvard cruised past the slower Bruins with relative ease.

"They sort of rolled over and died," Harvard Co-captain Nicole Engh said. "We weren't sure of how good they would be. We expected a little bit more of a race from them."

Junior Stacie Duncan and Co-Captain Jill Hutchison didn't seem sluggish after each winning three events at Pitt on Saturday. Duncan led the sqaud with first-place finishes in the 1000-M freestyle, 200-M butterfly, and the 400-M individual medley. Hutchison touched first in the 100 and 200-M freestyle, and joined Allison Estes, Stephanie Wriede, and Lynn Kelly to turn in a blistering 200-M medley relay time of 1:49.83.

Wreide, who qualified for the NCAA's in the 200-M breaststroke at Pitt this past weekend smoked the field with a time of 1:06.51 in the 100-M breaststroke, outdistancing the second-place finisher by three seconds. In the 400-M IM she finshed less than a second behind Duncan for a 1-2 Harvard finish in the event.

Estes, a freshman, turned in her best time of the season in the 200-M back at 2:09.91. Classmate Heather Gibbons hadn't raced yet this season and was not rested or tapered for the meet, but managed to turn in strong times and finish second in the 500-M free and third in the 1000-M free. Marcia Vital rounded out the high-scoring frosh trio with a first-place finish in 3-M diving and just missed first in the 1-M diving by one point, finishing in second-place.

The Notebook: The Crimson will be looking to extend its Ivy win streak when it faces off against Yale this Saturday at 2:00 p.m. at Blodgett Pool. Although the Elis have already dropped a meet to defending Ivy Champion Princeton, they are a sprint oriented team that should pose more of a challenge than Brown.

"[Yale] will give us some good races and make us swim hard," Engh said. "I think we'll win, but they'll give a challenge to our sprinters." Crimson, 182-99 in Providence

200 medley relay

1. HARVARD (Estes, Hutchison, Wriede, Kelly), 1:49.83; 2. Brown, (Morgan, Balstead, Pau, Smith), 1:52.45; 3. HARVARD.

1000 freestyle

1. Duncan (H), 10:09.98; 2. Zeiger (B), 10:15.71; 3. Gibbons (H), 10:20.38.

200 freestyle

1. Hutchison (H), 1:53.21; 2. Ciseck (B), 1:55.47; 3. Tomec (B), 1:57.69.

100 backstroke

1. Estes (H), 1:00.83; 2. Ryan (H), 1:01.23; 3. Morgan (B), 1:01.50.

50 freestyle

1. Chertow (H), 24.40; 2. Paul (B) 20.84; 3. Calvedetsen (H), 25.84.

400 individual medley

1. Duncan (H), 4:27.49; 2. Wriede (H) 4:28.36; 3. Zeiger (B), 4:32.46.

200 butterfly

1. Duncan (H), 2:06.91; 2. Kelly (H), 2:09.07; 3. Engh (H), 2:10.62.

100 freestyle

1. Hutchinson (H), 52.65; 2. Chertow (H), 53.57; 3. Paul (B), 53.71.

200 backstroke

1. Estes (H), 2:09.91; 2. Alonso (H), 2:12.02; 3. Morgan (B), 2:13.42.

100 breastroke

1. Wriede (H), 1:06.51; 2. McCormack (H) 1:09.22; 3. Weisand (H), 1:10.05.

200 breaststroke

1. McCormack (H), 2:29.64; 2. McCann (H), 2:33.94.

200 freestyle relay

1. Brown (Pau, Smith, Coady, Pfaltzgraff), 1:39.35; 2. HARVARD (Alonso, Gibbons, Chertow, Kelly), 1:39.39.

1-M diving

1. Cleary (B), 249.3; 2. Vital (H), 248.775; 3. Prensky (B), 214.125.

3-M diving

1. Vital (H), 240.53; 2. Cleary (B), 271. 275; 3. Urmston (B) 199.95.