After One Day, W. Swimming In Fourth

After the first of three days at the Ivy League Championships, the Harvard women’s swimming team found itself right in the middle of the pack. With its strongest events yet to come, the Crimson is in position to have one of its best finishes in the past few years.

Princeton has won the past three championships and showed no signs of slowing down, jumping into first with 222.5 points. The Tigers were trailed by Brown and Yale, who had 183.5 and 162 points, respectively. Harvard settled into fourth place in the field of eight with 159 points.

“Basically, we all got our first race jitters out,” junior Erica De Benedetto said.

The Crimson was led by its 200-yard freestyle relay, made up of sophomore Molly Ward, junior Kate Nadeu and seniors Anna Fraser and Jessi Walter. The squad broke a school record with its time of 1:24.05. Despite this effort, Harvard still finished third in the race, behind Brown and Princeton. Brown set an Ivy League record by finishing in 1:32.27.

Sophomore Anne Osmun finished strong for the Crimson, taking fourth in the one-meter dive. Also placing for Harvard were Ward at fifth in the 50-yard freestyle, senior Victoria Chang at seventh in the 500-yard freestyle and freshman Emily Stapleton at eighth in the 200-yard individual medley.

The Crimson enters the next two days more at ease, having already posted these encouraging results.

“I’m a lot more relaxed now that the meet’s started,” sophomore Allison Bates said.

Harvard also benefits from having its hardest day of competition first. The Crimson is much stronger in the events that will take place on the second and third days of the meet.

“It was definitely our weakest day today, so we’re looking forward to tomorrow,” De Benedetto said.

The 400-yard individual medley and 100-yard backstroke take place tomorrow, while the 200-yard backstroke and 200-yard butterfly are tomorrow.

“The last day is our strongest, so we’re going to do better each day,” freshman Michelle Bright said. “The best is yet to come.”