Setting four new pool records at the Upper Valley Aquatic Center in White River Junction, Vt. this weekend, the Big Green swimming and diving teams captured first place at the Dartmouth Invitational after a grueling two days of races. Swimming against the University of Massachusetts and Bryant University, the Dartmouth men won a close dual meet against UMass, 178-175, and easily handled Bryant by a score of 286-58. The women dominated UMass 246-91 and Bryant 268-45.
"Going into the meet, we didn't really know what to expect," men's co-captain Matt Stumpf '12 said. "Since these two teams are not in our league, we haven't been thinking about them as much, but, since we won the dual meet and lost the invitational last year, our goal this year was to win both."
From the moment the Big Green women jumped into the pool on Friday until the final race on Saturday afternoon, they swam well consistently and ran away with the meet, leaving UMass and Bryant in their wake.
In Friday's 200-yard freestyle relay, the first event of the invitational, the Dartmouth A relay team of Christine Kerr '14, Siobhan Hengmuhle '15, Sasha Alcon '15 and Mary Van Metre '14 took first place overall, setting the Big Green off to a strong start. This was followed by another first place win by Christine Kerr in the 500-yard freestyle in which she swam her season-best time of 5:00.84, also setting a new pool record in the process.
"We always look to our better swimmers to set the tone," head coach Jim Wilson said. "We knew from the first two races that the meet was going to go well. We ran away from Bryant and UMass, and it really wasn't much of a contest after the first day."
The women had an equally impressive showing on Saturday, with Christine Kerr breaking another pool record with her time of 1:52.47 in the 200-yard freestyle. In the final session of the Invitational on Saturday, Danielle Kerr '14 continued her dominance in the distance events with a first place finish in the 1650-yard freestyle, setting a new pool record of 17:22.02.
"Overall, the meet went really well," women's co-captain Galen Barry '12 said. "Everyone stepped up and took it one day at a time and one race at a time and swam their best even though everyone is very tired at this point in the season."
On Sunday, the Dartmouth men easily outswam Bryant, but UMass provided more of a challenge to the Big Green, as neither team could gain a substantial lead.
"It was back and forth between UMass and the men's team all meet the meet changed hands almost by event," Wilson said. "The dual meet came down to the last relay, and though we just got touched out for the win, we only needed second place to win the meet."
With the meet very close going into the final session on Saturday, the Big Green men had some impressive performances to finish off the day with a win.
"At lunch, coach told us we had to put our heads down and swim hard to out-touch UMass in every race," Stumpf said. "We did that in the second session [on Saturday], which was a lot of fun to watch."
Leading the Dartmouth surge was co-captain Mickey Ahern '12, who had a record-breaking swim in the 200-yard backstroke with a time of 1:51.60.
Several other Big Green swimmers shined in the final races of the Invitational as well. Ian Woon '15 stepped up and won the 100-yard freestyle against UMass on Saturday, while Albert Roth '13 won the 200-yard individual medley on Friday and the 200-yard butterfly on Saturday.
The Big Green divers also performed well against their competition, filling in some key points that helped the Big Green sweep the meets.
The second-annual Dartmouth Invitational is good preparation for the Ivy Championships, with the one and a half days of events hinting at the stamina required for the three-day Championship events.
"The Invitational mini-mirrors what we do at Ivy Championships," Wilson said. "We swam basically the same events that we do at Ivy Championships, and it is a great opportunity for the [athletes] to swim a couple extra events in a great prelude to the Championships."
While the three sessions of the event Friday evening, Saturday morning and Saturday afternoon proved physically and mentally exhausting, the Big Green rose to the challenge.
The strong performances on both the men's and women's sides leave the teams optimistic for the remainder of their seasons.
"We were very happy with the performance of the team," Barry said. "We're very excited looking forward to championships and what's to come."
The Big Green team closed out its grueling weekend by facing Princeton University on Sunday. Both teams fell to the Tigers by similar margins, with the men losing, 171-124, and the women falling, 175-125.
The Big Green women will be back in the pool on Feb. 4 when they face Northeastern University and the University of Rhode Island in Boston. Both teams will take on the University of Connecticut in Storrs, Conn. on Feb. 5.
