The Dartmouth men's and women's swimming and diving teams were both defeated by Princeton this weekend at the DeNuzio Pool in Princeton, N.J. The final scores were 182-111 in the men's competition and 200-95 in the women's.
Kelsey Clark '11 said she was not surprised by the stiff competition from the Tigers.
"Princeton is consistently ranked in the top 25 nationally for both men and women, so we knew it was going to be a tough meet," she said.
Despite the women's team's loss, Dartmouth (3-7, 1-5 Ivy) held its own in several events, with several athletes setting new personal records.
Galen Barry '12 took the first win of the day in the 200-meter backstroke with a time of 2:08.85, and later placed third in the individual medley at 2:10.51. Maddie Steiner '11 placed first in the 200-meter IM in 2:10.51, second in the 200-meter breaststroke in 2:26.46, and third in 100-meter backstroke in 1:01.81.
The women's team ended the meet with an exciting 200-meter freestyle relay, with Heather Jankins '09, Hillary Preston '09, Steiner and Clark finishing with a first-place time of 1:39.28.
This meet was the fourth of four the women's team faced in an eight-day span.
"It's definitely been a busy season, especially the past eight days," Clark said. "However, the coaches are trying to give us plenty of opportunities to race in preparation for Ivies at the end of February."
On the men's side, Dartmouth (0-9. 0-6 EISL)extended its losing streak to nine straight meets.
A bright spot in the meet, however, was Michael Ahern '12, who won both the 100- and 200-meter backstroke events in 52.98 and 1:53.84, respectively.
Ahern said he was pleased with the results of the meet, although the Big Green was not able to get a win.
"I had a personal-best time in the 200 backstroke," he said. "Everything was really close and everyone was pretty psyched up for the meet."
Late in the meet, Dartmouth's Andrew Ballentine '09, Chris Koppel '09 and Cary Stathopoulos '10 swept the 200-meter IM, with Ballentine taking first place in 1:58.73.
The Tigers barely edged out the women's diving team, with Erica Serpico '12 placing a very close second to Princeton's Katie Giarra. Serpico finished with 294.59 points on the one-meter, slightly trailing Giarra's 266.62.
On the three-meter board, Serpico scored 294.53, just over 11 points less than Giarra's 301.73.
On the men's side, diver Chris Plante '12 finished third in the one-meter with a score of 260.25.
Plante said the Tigers are extremely competitive both on the board and in the pool.
"Princeton is a really tough team, they are completely stacked in both swimming and diving, but we were really competitive with them this weekend," he said. "It is a great accomplishment to have even been in reach of a victory against them."
Both the men's and women's swimming and diving teams will compete in their first multi-day meet of the season against Boston College, the University of Rhode Island and the University of Maine this weekend in Boston, Mass. The meet is set to begin at 6:00 p.m. on Friday and 11:00 a.m. on Saturday.
