Swimming and Diving Reclaims Frank Keefe Trophy

The Frank Keefe Trophy, after taking a slight detour in New Haven last year, is coming back to Cambridge.

After a week of tapering, the Ivy League Championship pitted the Ancient Eight against one another in a competitive contest at Blodgett Pool over four days stretching from Feb. 14 to the 17th. At the end of it all, the Harvard women’s swimming and diving team took their third Ivy Crown in five years, accumulating 1616 points and beating the rest of the field by 125.5 points. Though tied with Yale after day one, the Crimson stretched its lead and ultimately finished with the first triple figure margin of victory for the Ivy League meet since 2013. The victory comes a year after the Bulldogs captured the meet, outpacing the rest of the field by 90 points.

“Last year, if you were to ask if we had a successful meet, I would have said definitely yes,” senior Alisha Mah said. “This year, it happened to come in our favor, and it was definitely sweet that it was at home, but I don’t think we did anything different except for swimming our hearts out and diving our hearts out.”

From the onset of the season, the team had its gaze on this pivotal meet.

“Our team in general has one goal, and that is to win the Ivy Championships,” captain Kristina Li said. “Everything that we do throughout the season, every single dual meet, every single practice, we have that goal in mind, and the takeaway is to never lose sight of your ultimate goal and see these individual events, these meets and practices, as stepping stones to the bigger goal.”

The Crimson came roaring out of the gate on the first day of championships, breaking the meet record in the 800-yard freestyle relay. Sophomore Miki Dahlke, freshman Kennidy Quist, captain Geordie Enoch, and junior Meagan Popp touched the finish in 7:05.06, more than six seconds faster than their seed time, eclipsing the meet record in the process. Harvard also captured first place in the 200-yard freestyle relay in 1:30.50 with the cohort of sophomore Mei Lynn Colby, freshman Ingrid Wall, sophomore Jerrica Li, and Dahlke anchoring

Dahlke would shine throughout the rest of the days of competition in individual events. The Mill Valley, Calif., native edged out Maddy Zimmerman from Yale in the 100-yard butterfly in 52.48. After finishing the race, she went on to set another pool record just a few minutes later in the 200-yard freestyle with a time of 1:45.38. Quist was right behind with a time of 1:45.75, out touching Penn senior Virgina Burns by one one-hundreth of a second.

In the next day of competition, Dahlke tied a meet record in the 100-yard butterfly, finishing in 48.64. Dahlke also was part of the 400-yard medley and 400-yard freestyle, which both finished second. At the end of the meet, Dahlke was named the High Point Swimmer of the Meet.

“Her performance was electrifying,” Kristina said. “She was on fire this weekend. What’s great is that swimming is in some ways individual and in some ways team. In college swimming, you have one swimmer who is lights out and beating people out, and that gets everyone else fired up. Miki played a huge role in winning her events and scoring points but also inspiring us all to fight as much as she did.”

Enoch also posted strong performances, including a 1:59.67 in the 200-yard individual medley, propelling into first place. She also finished second in the 400-yard individual medley behind Princeton freshman Regan Barney and fourth in the 200-yard breaststroke.

The depth of the Harvard’s lineup was epitomized in the diving. In the one meter and three meter diving events, the Crimson slotted four divers in the top eight. In the one meter, junior Mikaela Thompson finished second with 288.85 points, and in three meter diving, Mah finished in third with 306.65 points.

“I think what we do in competition is really indicative of how we train in the sense that it was just another practice in our minds because there were so many of us in our home pool,” Mah said. “For the most part, it was very much another day at practice. These are our boards, this is what we do every single day, and just putting all those pieces together.”

Mah credits the supportive culture of the team to its success throughout the dual meet season and at the Ivy League meet.

“And I think that was why it worked out so well because we were celebrating every little victory, whether it be a touchout or doing something that we said we would do,” Mah said. “And I definitely am so proud of our team for doing that and giving it their all. I’m just so happy that all the pieces fell together.”

At the conclusion of the 21 events of the meet, Harvard held the Frank Keefe Trophy aloft as Ivy League Champions. Kristina, who finished off her 13 year swimming career with a fourth place finish in the 200-yard backstroke, acknowledges the deluge of emotion that the meet invoked.

“These careers have been so long, so obviously from just that itself, it’s very emotional to finish your last race or your last dive,” Kristina said. “Our freshman year, we had Ivies home as well, so everyone felt like it came full circle and back to where it all began. And obviously, to be able to finish off all of our seniors’ careers with a win in our home pool was such a special feeling, and so all of that culminated in so much emotion that last night. I know that I cried many, many times.”

—Staff writer Leon K. Yang can be reached at leon.yang@thecrimson.com.