Aquawomen Cruise to Third at Easterns

Last year, the Harvard women's swimming team surprised everyone with a third-place finish at the Eastern Championships.

Saturday, the team once again finished third at the meet.

But to equate the two finishes would be criminal.

Because while the showings were the same, the 1986 Crimson claimed 542 points in the three-day meet hosted by Penn State, nearly doubling last year's score.

And while Brown and Penn State again placed first and second, Harvard managed to stay on the Nittany Lions' tails throughout the competition, winding up only 54 points out of second--in comparison to the 250-point margin of one year ago.

The most significant difference, however, was the quality of times produced by the Crimson. No fewer than ten team records fell during the championship meet and two aquawomen were victorious in their events, feats unprecedented in Harvard women's swimming history.

Even though the Crimson could not find the points that would push it ahead of Penn State, Coach Maura Costin remained upbeat in her analysis of the meet and of the season, which saw the squad claim its first-ever Ivy League title.

"I'm feeling very happy about our team's accomplishments this year," Costin said. "We were able to reach our goal of winning the Ivy League and were also able to get third place in a meet in which most people expected us to get no higher than fifth."

Harvard showed more depth than it is usually given credit for during its stay in Pennslyvania.

Half of the 14 individual events saw the Crimson score more than one swimmer in the top 16 places--including four events with a quartet of Harvard swimmers among the top 16.

The unquestionable highlight of the final session Saturday was the showing of the Crimson diving team in the three-meter finals. Jennifer Greene took the event with a score of 471.05 points in 11 dives, while Shannon Byrd pulled off a 459.70 total to capture third place.

Coupled with Thursday's one-meter competition, in which Greene placed fourth and Byrd sixth, diving helped the aquawomen catapult into the third spot early and remain there down the stretch.

For her efforts, Greene was honored with the Outstanding Diver of the Meet award.

Harvard swimmers were unwilling to let their diving counterparts steal the show, however. When Janice Sweetser won the 500-yd. freestyle Thursday in the first individual event of the meet, it marked the first victory ever for a Crimson woman swimmer in the Eastern Championships.

Sweetser's strong time of 4:58.54 also shattered the school record in the event.

After that, everybody else raced to take part in the record rampage, as no less than four relay marks and six individual times were erased from the Harvard record book.

Freshman Linda Suhs led the Crimson charge, taking partial or full credit for six of the 10 new marks.

In the 50 freestyle, Suhs set a team record of 24.51, good for sixth in the race, while in the 100 backstroke, the Springfield, Ill. native broke her own six-day old team best, establishing a new record of 59.68 seconds and earning fifth place overall.

Suhs' leadoff backstroke time of 27.60 in the 200 medley relay earned her a 50 backstroke record, and--combined with the legs of Allison Greis, Lani Nelson and Sweetser--gave the Harvard squad fifth place and a new team record of 1:48.56.

That same quartet of Greis, Nelson, Suhs and Sweetser also gained fourth in the 400 medley relay, in a record time of 3:55.17.

Senior Greis, meanwhile, was unstoppable in her last collegiate meet, snagging team records in both of the breaststroke events. Her 100 breaststroke time of 1:06.41 and a 200 breaststroke finish of 2:23.78 gave her third place and new school marks in both races.

The final two Harvard records went to the freestyle relay teams of Tara Gustilo, Nelson, Lisa Shauwecker and Suhs in the 200 freestyle relay, and to Molly Clark, Gustilo, Schauwecker and Sweetser in the 800 freestyle relay.

"I feel that this season was a turning point in the history of Harvard women's swimming," Costin said. "It showed to the rest of the league that we weren't a fluke in getting third last year. Also, it gives both Brown and Penn State a hint of the bigger and better things to come."