Seniors Steal Spotlight in Dominating Bears

The Harvard women’s swimming and diving team honored its senior class in fine form on Saturday in a dominant 196-98 win against Brown on senior day.

The meet—the Crimson’s only home event of the season—opened with a ceremony in honor of the team’s eight senior athletes who led Harvard (5-0, 5-0 Ivy League) to its fifth straight dual-meet victory.

“I didn’t think it was going to be as emotional as it was,” senior diver Samantha Papadakis said. “All the seniors really enjoyed the day—both our performances and the audience in the stands.”

All eight seniors—Meaghan Colling, Lindsay Hart, Beth Kolbe, Kelcey Moore, Jaclyn Pangilinan, Papadakis, Alison Pipitone, and Amanda Slaight—competed in the meet. Pangilinan led her classmates with three wins, while Papadakis and Pipitone each grabbed a first-place finish in the dive events and Kolbe set an American paralympic record in the 50-yard butterfly.

“We had a ton of family and friends in the stands, which was great especially since it was intersession and a lot of students were away,” co-captain Lindsay Hart said of the team’s strong performance,

The meet was only the Crimson’s second after a tough training trip to Florida over winter break. Harvard defeated Penn by a similar 199-96 count on January 12th.

“We are still coming off a lot of dry land [training],” said Hart. “Everyone was feeling sore and broken down but really stepped up and swam well in this meet.”

A mix of rookies and veterans kicked off scoring for the Crimson, as freshmen Katy Hinkle and Katherine Pickard and seniors Pangilinan and Slaight clocked a 1:47.43 first-place finish in the 200-yard medley relay. Harvard would go on to win a total of 12 of 14 events during the day.

Sophomore Alexandra Clarke, last year’s Ivy League runner-up in the 1000-yard freestyle, cruised to a 10:15.47 win in the same event.

The team’s underclassmen continued to impress throughout the day as Crimson freshmen swept the 200-yard freestyle. Kate Mills touched the wall in 1:50.94 for the first-place finish, while teammates Laura Murray and Christine Kaufman were close behind in second and third.

Sophomore Natalia Festa then led a second Crimson sweep of the 100-yard backstroke with a 59.94 finish in the event.

Hinkle further contributed to Harvard’s success with a 52.60 first-place finish in the 100-yard freestyle. Mills earned her second individual victory of the day in the 200-yard backstroke, Pickard won the 500-yard freestyle in 5:01.95, and classmate Ali Slack took first in the 100-yard butterfly in 58.36.

Co-captain Pangilinan finished her career at Blodgett Pool with a flourish, capturing first in her specialty breaststroke events. She led a senior sweep of the 100-yard breaststroke, touching the wall just in front of Colling and Slaight. The senior then swam to a 2:18.13 victory in the 200-yard breaststroke.

In the dive portion of the event, Harvard got two wins from its two senior divers. Alison Pipitone earned 277.73 points in the three-meter event to best Papadakis by less than a point. Papadakis then led a Harvard sweep of the first five places in the one-meter, winning the event with 285.82 points.

“The three-meter was definitely not a strong performance for me,” Papadakis said. “I came back on the one-meter portion ready to go.”

The Crimson now enters the most difficult portion of its schedule with a meet against Yale and Princeton in New Haven, Conn. this coming weekend and the Ivy League Championships the following weekend in Princeton, N.J.

“We set out a plan at the beginning of the season and are ready to get the adrenaline going in some of these final meets,” Papadakis said.

—Staff writer Rebecca A. Compton can be reached at rcompton@fas.harvard.