Women's Swimming and Diving Comes Second in MIT Invite

The Harvard women’s swimming and diving team (2-1, 2-1 Ivy) had impressive showings at separate invites this past week, with the swimmers traveling to the Texas Invitational, and a small contingent of swimmers and divers going across town and finishing second at the MIT Invitational.

Faced with a nationally ranked field at the University of Texas, the swimmers posted solid personal times all around but were further down the leaderboard than in Ivy meets.

“We really stepped up against [the strong field],” said freshman distance swimmer Ashlee Korsberg. “We tried to race well against [the solid teams], and it was exciting to go up against them.”

Led by sophomore Danielle Lee’s ninth place finishes in the 100 and 200 backstroke events and strong relay results, Harvard demonstrated it could compete on a bigger stage.

TEXAS INVITATIONAL

Although the invitational in the Lone Star state may have been a break from Ivy League play, it did not signal a respite from stiff competition.

Taking a break from its dual meet action, the 22nd ranked Crimson squad squared off against teams such as first ranked USC, host and ninth ranked Texas, and a 14th ranked UCLA group.

“We thought we did well [in Texas],” Korsberg said. “It was exciting to race against other schools than the ones that are in our conference, and we thought we raced really well against them.”

If the Harvard women had any butterflies in their stomachs while taking their mark next to some of the best collegiate swimmers in the country, they didn’t show it.

In the first event of the invite, the 200 free relay B team of freshmen Daniela Johnson and Summer Schmitt, Lee, and junior Faith Martin turned in a 13th place finish. Their time of 1:35.62 was a fraction of a tick faster than the grouping’s morning preliminary time.

Building the foundation for her impressive three-day showing, Lee also swam her portion of the 400 medley relay at a 54.19 clip, keying her quartet to the eighth spot in the final. Coming in 11th in the same event at 3:49.91 was the B relay quartet of freshmen Marissa Cominelli and Korsberg, Johnson, and captain Danielle Schulkin.

In the best women’s performance of the invite by a Harvard swimmer, Lee came from behind to win the B heat of the 100 backstroke. A hair behind Brigham Young University’s Hailey Campbell going into the final turn, Lee kicked into an extra gear, stretching to finish .04 seconds ahead of Campbell. Her personal best time of 53.87 earned her an NCAA provisional B time and came just .28 seconds behind the Harvard record time for the event.

“She works hard at practice and had great wall [turns in the 100-yard backstroke],” Korsberg said. “Her underwater dolphin kicks are really good, and she was able to get ahead in her races with [those].”

Lee continued to steal the show on the final day of the invite with another B heat victory, this time in the 200 backstroke with a time of 1:57.36, just a bit more than two seconds off the Crimson’s record pace.

On the distance side, Korsberg continued to shine in her first season with a 13th place finish in the 500 freestyle B heat and also came in 10th in the longest collegiate event, the 1650-yard freestyle.

MIT INVITATIONAL

A little closer to home, a group of Harvard swimmers and divers earned second place at the MIT Invitational with 676.5 points. Though the number was a far cry from the Engineer’s winning total of 1208.5, it was impressive, given that the Crimson was only fielding about half of its team.

To start things off, the trio of senior Paige Newell and sophomores Connie Hsu and Daniela Suarez-Rebling outpaced the seven-school field in the 500 free event for the first of three Crimson podium sweeps of the invitational.

And in an impressive display of the Crimson’s depth in the one-meter and three-meter diving events, Harvard took the top five positions of both, with underclassmen leading the way.

Freshman Brittany Wang took first in the 1-meter with a 301.35 score, less than four points ahead of teammate Elina Leiviska, who returned the favor by beating her fellow freshman by a 35 point margin in the 3-meter event with a score of 343.15. The Crimson divers finished with a 176-point total in just two events.

“It was awesome and really great for us [to sweep both events] and to see the team be together,“ Leiviska said. “We all did well so we can all be proud of our teammates.”