The Big Green finished seventh at the Eastern Women's Swimming League Championships at Princeton University last weekend, capping Dartmouth's women's swimming's most successful season ever.
The women finished 7-4, 3-4 in the Ivy League, breaking their previous record of six wins in a season. The seventh place finish also tied their highest finish at the E.W.S.L Championships.
Dartmouth began the first day's competition by shattering the school record time of 3:52.8 and breaking the Princeton pool record in the 400 Medley Relay with a 3:50.75 finish in the morning preliminary heat. The team ended up finishing third with a time of 3:52.17 in the finals that night.
The Big Green's 200 freestyle relay team's time of 1:38.76 in the preliminaries broke the old school record by two tenths of a second.
On the individual side, Dartmouth dominated the consolation finals of the 200 individual medley. Deb Whitney '96 swam to a 2:08.54 eleventh place finish, followed by Corey Murphy '95 in 2:08.54 and Karyn Bysshe '96 in 2:08.86.
The Big Green ended the day in eighth place with 73 points.
The divers, competing on the one-meter board Thursday, were led by Ally Ruff '95, who finished 12th with a score of 313.45.
Deborah Uchtmann '97 earned 21st place with a score of 269.50, followed by Sarah Hobson '97 in 22nd and Erika Monahan '96 in 23rd.
The second day of competition saw Dartmouth move into seventh place over Cornell. Backstroker Anne Gibson '97, breaststroker Andrea Hill '97, butterflyer Bysshe and freestyler Anne Soutter '96 finished 4th in the 200 medley relay with a time of 1:47.57.
Individually, Murphy finished third in the 100 backstroke with a time of 57.38. Natasha Lam '97 and Hill put in strong performances in the 100 breaststroke. Lam finished 13th in 1:08.24 and Hill finished fourth in 1:05.40.
The finals of the 100 butterfly were dominated by Whitney, who finished second in 57.53 and Bysshe, who finished fifth in 58.40.
The day's events were capped by the school record set by Amy Schneeberger '97 in the 400 individual medley. After swimming a 4:38.94 in that morning's preliminaries, she returned that evening to swim a 4:37.61, finishing 14th.
On Saturday, the final day of competition, the Big Green again swam fast enough to break several school records. Kathy Luz '96 swam a very steady 1650, finishing 15th in 17:33.28.
Hill broke her own school record in the 200 breaststroke by grabbing fifth place with a 2:20.21.
Bysshe and Whitney returned to butterfly competition, this time in the 200. Bysshe shattered the school record of 2:06.8, swimming to second place and a 2:05.00. Whitney finished seventh in 2:07.95.
Schneeberger joined them, winning the consolation final in 2:07.16, the fifth fastest time overall.
"I was very pleased with my performance," Schneeberger said. "I couldn't have asked for a better meet."
The 400 freestyle relay was the final relay of the competition. By this time, Dartmouth's relay teams had already established the theme of new school records. Soutter, Whitney, Murphy and Bysshe all proved true to form, breaking the old record of 3:35.8 by swimming a 3:32.97.
After being plagued with problems all season, the divers dove off the three meter in competition for the first time since February 5th. Placing sixth in the preliminaries earned Ruff a spot in the finals, where she ended up in eighth with a score of 371.35.
Monahan also turned in a strong performance, finishing 15th with a score of 316.15.
"The irony of it is, we performed better on the three meter board despite a lack of practice," Coach Ron Keenhold said.
Ruff will compete in the NCAA Regional Championship at Navy March 11th and 12th.
Every season since Coach Betsy Mitchell took charge of the Big Green, the women have improved over the previous year's record.
