Women's Swimming and Diving Open Season With Pair of Comfortable Wins

One after another, the contestants took their final freestyle stroke, hitting the wall and coming up for air after a grueling 200-yard individual medley. One after another, they were greeted by their teammates’ faces, with Harvard swimmers taking first, second, third, and fourth in the event.

Such a phenomenon occurred quite frequently this weekend, with the Crimson women’s swimming and diving team bagging wins over Ivy League rivals Cornell and Dartmouth. Harvard defeated the Big Red, 191-109, while overcoming the Big Green, 217-83, in Ithaca, N.Y.

“We all train together, so having us race and seeing that we’re all close and doing well is really comforting,” senior Danielle Lee said. “I think this is a great start to the season. I know that during October is our hardest training of the season, so we’re all broken down and exhausted, so after this weekend it shows us how strong and tough we are going into the upcoming season.”

Freshman Sonia Wang led a group of standout performers for the Crimson, claiming a trio of first-place finishes in her first collegiate meet. Wang won the 100-yard backstroke with a time of 55.47, followed closely by senior Kendall Crawford, who finished second at 55.68.

The Upland, Calif., native then beat out a duo of Cornell swimmers to finish first in the 100 butterfly before claiming her final victory in the 200 IM, where she won by an almost six-second margin. Lee, junior Daniela Johnson, and sophomore Geordie Enoch finished second through fourth after Wang, touching in between 2:06.13 and 2:06.72, respectively.

Enoch also enjoyed a successful start to her second campaign. The Odenton, Md., native, along with Lee, sophomore Gabby Sims, and freshman Brittany Usinger, helped Harvard get off to a winning start on Saturday morning by winning the 200-yard medley relay.

The sophomore then won the 100-yard breaststroke with a time of 1:05.32, a full second-and-a-half ahead of the second-place finisher. She completed her trio of first-place finishes by dominating the 200-yard breaststroke, finishing four seconds ahead of the second-placed Johnson.

“This year there’s a little bit more of a focus on breaststroke for me,” Enoch said, “because we graduated [Stephanie Farrell '15] last year, who was an amazing breaststroker…. I kind of had to step up into that role this weekend.”

Enoch’s relay partner, Lee, claimed another of the Crimson’s 12 victories—out of 16 total events—in the 200 freestyle. The senior paced the field with a time of 1:51.66, ahead of teammate and second-placed finisher, junior Victoria Chan.

“I was a little exhausted going into the meet,” Lee said. “I was going into the meet hoping for a decent swim, but I was really surprised during this race and feeling really good. I remember I felt good during the first 100 and it was really easy, so I picked up the second 100 and tried to make it even faster. I felt comfortable the whole time.”

After finishing second in the 100-yard backstroke, Crawford rebounded later in the meet with a first-place result in the 200-yard backstroke, swimming five seconds faster than any other competitor.

Harvard also swept the top three places in the 1000-yard freestyle, with senior Sherry Liu coming in seconds ahead of sophomore Regan Kology and junior Willa Wang.

The diving team won both of its events on Friday, helping the Crimson get off to the best of starts. Freshman Mikaela Thompson began her collegiate career in style, winning the one-meter board with a score of 288.40, ahead of second-placed, junior teammate Elina Leiviska.

Leiviska followed up with a win in the three-meter diving event, scoring 315.20 points to finish ahead of teammates Hannah Allchurch and Thompson, who came in second and third, respectively.

“Before the meet, we had a meeting and we all talked about how one of our big goals was to be touching out girls on other teams,” Enoch said. “Continuing to do that will make us successful going forward. But you can never be too confident. Other teams are always going to have great people putting up really fast times, so you can’t get too comfortable.”