In a meet that was undecided entering the final event, the 400-yard freestyle relay, the women's team was able to edge out Penn by a narrow margin, 150-149.
"We knew we had to finish second and third to Penn [in the 400 free relay] to win, so we split up the A and B relay teams and ended up beating them by a point," Dartmouth coach Jim Wilson said.
The win against Penn also marked the accomplishment of one of the team's preseason goals. Wilson said that the women aimed to win three Ivy League meets this year, and the defeat of Penn marks victory number three.
The men's meet against Penn also came down to the final event, the 400-yard freestyle relay, with the Big Green needing to come in first and second over the Quakers to pull out the overall victory. Dartmouth came up just short, taking second and third to Penn after splitting up their A and B relay teams to fall to the Quakers, 157.5-142.5 overall.
"We had a good showing against Penn," men's co-captain Mickey Ahern '12 said. "It came down to the last few events, and this was the closest that we have come to beating them in my time here."
Both teams lost to Yale University, with the men falling 195.50-130.50 and the women, 174-126.
"We knew it was an uphill battle with Yale, but we stayed with them for half the meet," Wilson said. "We couldn't outdistance them by the end though."
The tremendous individual efforts made by the Big Green swimmers this weekend were not fully reflected in the final scores from the meet.
"It was a disappointing loss [to Penn], but a successful day for us," men's co-captain Matt Stumpf '12 said. "We swam well for us, but Penn just came out a little bit stronger."
The Big Green had a strong start to the meet, with the men being out-touched by less than a tenth of a second in the 200-yard medley relay to begin the men's swimming events.
"This is always an energizing race, and it is a pretty good emotion-setter for the meet." Ahern said. "We had a close race and just got out-touched in the end."
With strong performances by both the men and the women in the distance events, the Big Green dominated the 1,000-yard freestyle, with Danielle Kerr '14 and Dylan Gabel '14 both finishing in first place.
"I have had lots of practice throughout the season swimming longer events," Kerr said. "Since [the 1,000-yard freestyle] is a 10-minute race, I like to focus on the second half of the race, and I don't like to go out too fast. I definitely have more confidence now coming off of this weekend's success."
Kerr also had a tremendous showing when the women's team traveled to the University of Vermont for a dual meet on Sunday. She set a new UVM pool record for the 1,650-yard freestyle, shaving over 30 seconds off the old record with her time of 17:13:33. Kerr wasn't done there, though. In the final event of the day, the 200-yard freestyle relay, Kerr teamed with Sasha Alcon '15, Elizabeth Kamai '12 and twin sister Christine Kerr '14 to set her second pool record of the day, clocking a 1:39.35.
Winning 12 out of 16 events on the day, the Big Green handily defeated the Catamounts, 193-107. Swimming back-to-back meets was physically and emotionally draining for the Dartmouth women, but riding the momentum of their success against Penn, the team had confidence going into their non-conference competition.
"Two years ago, Vermont beat us," Wilson said. "This time, the contest was not even close. After an emotional win against Penn on Saturday, the women were spent, but they stepped up and did a super job to walk away with the meet pretty easily."
The women will be in action again this Saturday when they host the University of New Hampshire. After that, both the men's and women's teams will compete in the Dartmouth Invitational at the Upper Valley Aquatic Center on Jan. 27 and 28 before facing Princeton University on Jan. 29.
"The Invitational was a big meet for us last year," Wilson said. "A lot of Ivy [Championship] entry times came out of that meet, so we are looking to do well there again this year."
With only two more Ivy League meets remaining in the regular season, the Big Green is already looking ahead to the Ivy Championships, to be held Feb. 23-25.
"We face each team twice a season, in a dual meet and then again at the end of the year," Stumpf said. "The word for right now is focus as we work as hard as possible so that we have no regrets come [the Ivy Championships]."
