The women's swim team still hopes to climb towards the top of the list of the elite in the East, but has struggled early and is off to a 1-3 start.
The team's record has improved each of the last three years under the guidance of head coach and former Olympic silver medal winner Betsy Mitchell. Last year the team had a record of 5-5 and, more importantly, was competitive in all its meets for the first time.
Among the five teams that bested the Big Green was Cornell, and the team will have a chance to avenge that loss in its next home meet on January 8.
The team's pre-season goal is to finish the season with a record of 6-5, which would give the women their first winning season and would break most of the records currently held for Dartmouth swimming.
They will also attempt to make a stronger showing at the Eastern Championships in February. Nine swimmers from the Dartmouth squad - a school record - have already qualified for the meet this year, and Mitchell expects three divers and three more swimmers to qualify before the deadline.
Many of the swimmers will also participate in the Senior National and Junior National meets at the end of the season.
The team's record four meets into the season is actually not that surprising given the strength of the opponents the team has faced thus far.
The Brown meet was a struggle to the end, decided by the final relay.
Princeton and Harvard are both perennially strong teams. As the Big Green had little chance of winning, Mitchell did not go into the meet with her usual lineup.
Still, the team turned in a pair of strong performances, and lost by the closest margin in over a decade.
"That is the best indication of the strength of this team," Mitchell said.
But aside from these team goals, Mitchell emphasized the importance of focusing on individual achievement. She said her goal as a coach is to see every swimmer or diver raise her own performance to a higher level.
"What I'm in coaching for is to see each swimmer swim a faster individual time and each diver improve on their individual best in competition," Mitchell said. "If each person shaves 1/100th of a second off their best time, or each diver scores higher than the personal best, it is all worth it."
"Swimming is a team sport, but also much more of an individual sport," she added. "In other sports, coaches can offer subjective praise, based on how the team performs as a whole, but in swimming, each person can see the results of their work, and can work to score their personal best to achieve the team's goals."
Over the break, the women worked to lower their times in Coral Springs, Fla., where they trained intensely for 10 days and had a meet against Princeton.
With a great deal of returning and new talent, the team is much deeper this year than in years past, with 11 freshmen swimmers and three freshmen divers.
Mitchell said the '97s will be a great asset to the team, because they have diverse specialties and are usable in events other than their specialties.
But the real core of the team is made up of sophomores, with seven swimmers and three divers from the Class of '96 returning from last year's squad.
Lisa Cloitre '94, the only senior on the team, and Cory Murphy '95, are the team captains. Cloitre leads the team with her determination, perseverance and emotional motivation.
Murphy holds the school record in the 100 and 200-yard backstroke, was a member of four record-holding relays and has qualified for Easterns.
Murphy was named second team All-Ivy last year and should be an important factor in the women's quest for a winning season.
Deb Whitney '96 is strong in the butterfly, and last year set three school records. Whitney and classmates Anne Soutter '96 and Kathy Luz '96 have all qualified for Easterns as well.
Other Eastern qualifiers include freshmen Andrea Hill in the breaststroke, Elizabeth Johnsen in the individual medley and Amy Schneeberger in the butterfly. Anne Gibson '97 also qualified, breaking two Dartmouth records in the backstroke in the process.
Ali Ruff '95 will lead the team on the diving end. Last season Ruff qualified for the diving zone meet, which is the qualifying meet for the NCAA championships.
Ruff and the other five divers will have a tough task ahead of them to qualify for Easterns. Dartmouth's three-meter board was ruled unsafe by the NCAA shortly before the team left for Florida. Just recently, the team received the go ahead to practice on the board, but cannot use it in competition, giving the divers three away meets to qualify.
The diving team has improved a great deal in the past two years, starting with Ruff's success as a freshman.
"The diving team has changed from being a liability to one of our greatest strengths," Mitchell said.
Freshmen Debbie Uchtmann, Sarah Hobson and Anne Milander will join divers Erica Monahan '96 and Kelly Wheelan '95.
