The men's and women's swimming and diving squads competed in a series of heated meets this weekend. The men narrowly dropped their Friday contest to Colgate by a score of 126.5 to 114.5, before being trounced on Saturday by Ivy League counterparts Cornell and Harvard, 231 to 62 and 230 to 65, respectively. The women, however, put on a strong showing as they split results with a pair of conference foes.
In the men's hotly-contested matchup against Colgate in Hamilton, N.Y., the Big Green had a strong performance, but fell just short. Sophomore Kevin Ellis '09 led Dartmouth with two victories. Ellis's 1:43.83 in the 200 freestyle bested the closest competitor by five seconds -- a very large margin -- while in the 50 freestyle, his time of 48.02 was good enough for his second victory of the day.
Cary Stathopoulos '10, Gordon Russell '08 and Alex Fidel '09 also recorded wins for Dartmouth. Stathopoulos' 10:26.91 gave him the gold in the 1,000 free, while Russell was victorious in the 200 backstroke. Fidel paced the competition with a 5:02.49 time in the 500 free.
Additionally, Andrew Berry '08 was impressive on the one-meter board. He won with a score of 256.45.
Berry proved to be the lone bright spot of Dartmouth's team on Saturday in Ithaca, N.Y. against Cornell. His 280.40 score demolished the competition as he took home his fourth straight win on the one-meter board. Runner-up Christopher Donohue of Cornell was almost 20 points behind Berry.
"As a team, we are doing pretty well considering that we lost a lot of guys to injuries and sickness in the past weeks," Ellis said. "With a team of less than 15 guys, we were able to compete among teams inside and outside of the Ivy League. However, we did lose pretty badly to Cornell and Harvard in the double dual meet this past weekend, but these are the top teams in the league right now, and we had some excellent swims and dives."
The women performed extremely well in Ithaca this weekend as they split their meets, defeating Cornell 182.5 to117.5, before falling to Harvard 187.5 to 109.5.
The big winner for the Big Green was co-captain Melissa Kern '07, who was a double winner in two long-distance freestyle events. Kern recorded a winning time of 10:35.98 in the 1,000 free and 5:07.85 in the 500.
Dartmouth also had five athletes place second in events throughout the day. Heather Jankins '09 tied for second in the 100 freestyle and placed third in the 50 free with a time of 25.07.
"We've been training and racing well," Jankins said. "[Coaches] Jim [Wilson], Chris [Hamilton], Rachel [Stratton] and Jesup [Szatkowski] have been doing a great job."
Jackie Benson '08 was also a runner up in her event. Her time of 2:26.22 put her second in the 200 breaststroke. Co-Captain Lizzie Rippe '07 also took silver in the 100 butterfly, as did Kathleen Brady '10 in three-meter diving and Liz Mancuso '08 in the 200 individual medley.
"Sunday was a great day for us," Rippe said about the meet. "Our victory over Cornell was by far the biggest margin we've beaten an Ivy League team in the last four years, and although we lost to Harvard, we still had many close, exciting races. As a team, we swam faster this weekend against Harvard and Cornell than we did in our first three meets of the season. Hopefully we can continue this trend throughout the year, improving our performances each week until Ivies in February."
The Big Green women will return to action this Saturday against Brown at 11 a.m. at home in the Karl Michael Pool.
"[This will be] our last dual meet before our winter training trip to San Croix and Puerto Rico," said Rippe. "It will certainly be a tough meet and we have to be ready to compete for every single point. But if our performance on Sunday was any indication, we are up to the challenge."
The Dartmouth men will continue this Saturday as well in Hanover at 2:30 p.m. They will host Ivy rival Brown as well as the Navy swim club as they try to turn things around from this past weekend.