The women's swim team, looking for its record ninth victory of the season, finished its dual meet season last weekend with a 162-133 loss at Yale. The loss dropped Dartmouth's record to 8-3, 4-3 in the Ivy League, the team's best finish ever.
The 200 medley relay team of Captain Cory Murphy '95, Andrea Hill '97, Karyn Bysshe '96 and Deb Whitney '96 lost only its second race of the season, finishing .17 seconds behind Yale's top team in a time of 1:49.12.
Dartmouth fell behind quickly as Yale swept the top three spots in the 1000 freestyle. Freshman Catherine Sterling's fourth place time of 10:46.75 left Dartmouth trailing 31-7.
Whitney took second in the 200 freestyle by half of a second with a 1:55.15 and Murphy took second in the 100 backstroke with a time of 59.09.
In the 100 breaststoke, Hill brought home Dartmouth's first win as she pulled ahead of Yale's Malindi Davies, winning in a time of 1:06.07. Liz Rehrmann '98 earned the Big Green's second win in the 50 freestyle, finishing in 24.98 seconds, beating the top Yale swimmer by just more than a tenth of a second.
Yale was no match for the Dartmouth divers. Allison Ruff '95 won the one meter competition with 232.95 points and teammate Sarah Hobson '97 took fourth with 223.27. Ruff repeated her winning performance on the three meter board, winning with 227.02 points. Hobson finished third with 210.60 points.
After the first diving break, Rehrmann and Whitney swam the 100 freestyle. Rehrmann took second in 54.13, one hundredth of a second off her season best. Whitney took third in 54.59. Murphy took third in the 200 backstroke, her worst finish of the season.
Again Hill broke Dartmouth's losing streak. After a close 100 breaststroke, Yale's Davies was expecting a close race in the 200 breaststroke.
But Hill became the first woman in Dartmouth swimming history to break the 2:20 barrier in the 200 breaststroke, destroying her old varsity record and the rest of the field. She finished in a blistering 2:19.34, beating Davies by more than six seconds.
Yale came back after the breaststroke to sweep the 500 freestyle. In the 100 butterfly, Yale's Britt Greineder edged out Bysshe, 59.79 to 59.85. But Dartmouth's strongest event came after the second diving break. The Big Green swept the top three spots in the 200 individual medley.
Murphy won the event in 2:12.85, followed closely by Bysshe who finished in 2:13.16. Hill completed the sweep with a 2:15.37.
Each year since Betsy Wilson became the women's swimming coach in 1990, the women's swim team has improved its record over the previous season. Last year, the team finished 7-4. In 1993, it finished 5-5-1
With Saturday's loss, the team ended the season fourth in the Ivy League. The team has two weeks off before the Eastern Championships at Harvard, which start Feb. 23.
