Columbia Beats Women's Swimming and Diving for the First Time

Streaks are meant to be broken, and the Harvard women’s swimming and diving team (0-1, 0-1 Ivy League) saw two impressive winning streaks come to an end in its loss against Columbia (1-0, 1-0 Ivy League) on Saturday: a 14-meet winning streak against Ivy League foes stretching back to January 28, 2011, and a perfect 28-0 record against Columbia since the first contest between the two teams in 1985.

The close 163.5-136.5 loss might seem disheartening to Crimson fans. After all, over the past two years, Harvard women’s swimming and diving had been a dominant force in the Ivy League and the region. The Crimson went undefeated in a perfect 9-0 season in 2012-2013 and maintained a 7-0 record against Ivy League opponents in 2011-2012 with its only losses coming against non-conference powerhouses Northeastern and Iowa.

For the Harvard swimmers themselves, however, the positive takeaways from Saturday’s meet easily outweighed the significance of a loss on record and broken streaks.

“Yes, we may have lost the meet, but this came off of a very tough week of training,” sophomore Danielle Lee said. “On the other hand, Columbia came out ready to race, and they swam very well today. The fact that we broke six pool records and swam as competitively as we did under such conditions speaks a lot to the amount of talent on our team.”

Several newcomers to the team made their collegiate debuts in style, clinching individual wins and brightening their prospects for the years ahead. Freshman diver Elina Leiviska, a member of the Finnish national diving team, easily captured both the 1-meter (279.15) and 3-meter (285.16) diving events, while sprinter Victoria Chan dominated in both the 50-yard (23.54) and the 200-yard freestyle (1:46.80). Distance specialist Ashlee Korsberg opened up her collegiate career with a bang, winning the 1650-yard freestyle in 16:40.24, the sixth fastest time in the country.

“We had several freshmen really step up,” sophomore Kendall Crawford said. “Breaking pool records and swimming nationally ranked times—I think the entire team did a phenomenal job today, but the way the freshmen swam in their first collegiate meet was absolutely fantastic.”

Upperclassmen also put their experience and talent on display, their efforts spearheaded by Lee and senior Sara Li. Li, who swam in two individual events and two relays, won the 100-yard freestyle in 52.05 seconds and helped the 400-yard freestyle relay to a first place finish along with junior Sarah Sumner, freshman Daniela Johnson, and Lee (3:27.25). Lee, who also competed in four events, clinched individual victories in the 100-yard (54.54) and 200-yard backstroke (1:58.88).

As the narrow differential of 27 points shows, the two teams went back and forth throughout the meet. Leiviska kicked things off for the Crimson by taking the first event, the 3-meter dive, and Columbia immediately responded by going 1-2 in a highly competitive 200-yard medley relay event. Harvard’s “A” team of Lee, junior Stephanie Ferrell, Crawford, and Chan finished a close third in 1:44.34.

“I think the 200-yard medley relay was when things swung in [Columbia’s] favor,” Lee said. “But we managed to return the favor by breaking their pool records in the last event, the 400-yard freestyle relay.”

These first two events set the tone for the rest of the meet, with Harvard catching up to Columbia with a string of individual victories only for the Lions to surge ahead in the following event. Consecutive victories from Korsberg, Chan, and Lee pushed the Crimson back into the thick of things, but Columbia’s back-to-back 1-2-3 finishes in the 100-yard breaststroke and the 200-yard butterfly put some distance between the two teams.

Overall, the Crimson picked up nine event wins against the Lions’ eight, displaying the competitiveness of its top swimmers; Depth seemed to be the missing piece of the puzzle as Harvard only managed 19 top-3 finishes on the day to Columbia’s 32.

Rather than mull over the loss, however, the team remains poised for success in the upcoming meets.

“We have been pushing ourselves very, very hard throughout the training season,” Crawford said. “Our focus is on the big meets that matter, such as the Texas Invitational in December. We might have lost the first meet, but there is nowhere to go from here but up.”

Streaks are meant to be broken, but broken streaks are meant to begin anew.