League Title Bid Falls Just Short

The Harvard women’s swimming and diving team split up this weekend, with roughly half the squad taking to the pool at the Ivy Championships, hosted by Princeton University, and the rest traveling to the University of Pittsburgh for the Eastern College Athletics Conference Championships.

“Our goal was to take two championships in one weekend, and it’s great because everyone on the team had a chance to compete at a conference meet,” Crimson coach Stephanie Morawski said.

Unfortunately for Harvard, second place was the theme for the weekend—it couldn’t beat the host Tigers, placing second at the Ancient Eight meet, while the ECAC team also finished second with 609.5 points, only 1.5 points behind winner New Hampshire.

IVY CHAMPIONSHIPS

The Class of 2011 led the way for Harvard at the Ivies, with four seniors placing in the top three of their events. Morawski was able to bring seven seniors to the meet, the largest number in her time with the Crimson.

“Every member of the team scored points, and we had some great leadership from our seniors, but we didn’t quite have enough to take down Princeton,” Morawski said.

Top among the point scorers was senior Kate Mills who, after her 117 points garnered this weekend, finished with 330 total points during her Ivy Championship career—making her the career-high point-scorer at the annual meet.

“I didn’t expect to receive the career mark with so many great swimmers out there; I’m pleased and pleasantly surprised,” the California native said.

Mills won the 400-yard individual medley, anchored the winning 800-yard freestyle relay team, came second in the 200-yard butterfly, anchored the second place 400-yard freestyle relay, and came third in the 200-yard individual medley.

Some of her biggest competition in those events came from her teammate, sophomore Laura Evans.

“Laura and Kate kept going back and forth, Laura would set a team record in the morning, and Kate would break it in the afternoon. It was great to watch,” Morawski said.

Evans came second in the 400-yard individual medley, fourth in the 200-yard individual medley, swam on the winning 800-yard freestyle relay team with Mills, and came fifth in the 200-yard backstroke.

Senior Christine Kaufman continued her long-distance prowess, with a top-three finish in the 1000-yard freestyle for the third year in a row. She added another bronze in the mile and a fifth-place finish in the 500 free.

Senior Jenny Reese came second on the one-meter diving board, and sophomore Brittany Powell came second in the three-meter.

Co-captains Ali Slack and Katie Hinkle helped round off an incredibly successful weekend for the senior class. Hinkle set a school record in the 50-yard freestyle, as the two seniors contributed 228.5 of the team’s 1,436 points.

The seniors, while disappointed at not leaving with an Ivy Championship, were emotional about their time at Harvard.

“It’s been an amazing four years, and this was a great culmination of it all,” Slack said. “We did the best we could, and it was an amazing effort by everyone. The last day was the best day, and that made me very proud.”

ECAC CHAMPIONSHIPS

Records fell as the rest of the Crimson claimed second at the ECAC Championships. Harvard’s 200-yard freestyle relay team broke the meet record with a time of 1:34.54 in the preliminaries and then lowered that record to 1:34.47 in the finals.

The Crimson 200-yard individual medley, 400-yard individual medley, and 400-yard freestyle relays each also reached the podium in second place.

“[Having to split the team in half this weekend] was a testament to the hard work the team had put in, to be able to successfully field nearly two full squads at separate events,” Morawski said.

While much of the success at the Ivies came in the lanes, Harvard swept the diving events at the ECACs, with sophomore Jessica Stanfield winning the one-meter event and junior Courtland Kelly taking the three-meter event and Diver of the Meet award.