Women's Swimming and Diving Faces Tough Competition in Harvard Yale Princeton Meet

Over the weekend Blodgett Pool was transformed into the hub of Ivy League rivalry, as the top three swim programs in the Ancient Eight met to settle the argument of which team reigns supreme.

The Harvard women’s swimming and diving team (7-1-1, 6-0-1 Ivy) faced off against Princeton (6-2-1, 5-0-1) and Yale (6-2, 4-2), as the Crimson looked to continue its four-year streak of sweeping the meet. The results were mixed, as the team came out on Saturday with a 184-116 win against Yale and a 150-150 tie with Princeton.

“It was incredibly excited going into this meet. I love HYP - you can rarely get the energy and the level of competition at any other meet,” senior diver Schuyler Moore said. “There is always pressure to win this meet, but at the end of the day we have a bigger goal. We want to be Ivy League champions, and this meet is just another practice round for that goal.”

On Friday, Harvard dominated the first few events, starting with the 200 medley relay. Junior Danielle Lee, senior Stephanie Ferrell, and sophomores Daniela Johnson and Victoria Chan had a combined time of 1:42.38 to win the event for the Crimson by more than a body length ahead of their nearest competitors. Tigers Shirley Wang, Olivia Chan, Elsa Welshofer, and Maddy Veith, came in two seconds later. Yale’s team and Harvard’s B team came in fractions of a second after Princeton.

The Crimson continued to show its dominance in events three, four, and five. Junior Margaret Ramsey won the 200 free with a time of 1:49.56. Lee and freshman Kristina Li nabbed the top two spots in the 100 back, and Ferrell outpaced Yale’s Paulina Kaminski and Princeton’s Chan in the 100 breast.

At that point, the Crimson was up by over 20 points against both the Tigers and the Bulldogs.

From there, the momentum shifted in Princeton’s favor, with the Tigers taking four of the top five spots in the 50 free.

In diving, freshmen Jing Jeung and Hannah Allchurch came in 2^nd and 3^rd place in the 3-meter dive with scores of 314.40 and 305.85, respectively. Both finished behind Princeton’s Caitlin Chambers, who scored a 330 in the event.

On Saturday, Princeton’s momentum continued with a win in the 100 free, but Harvard quickly came back in the next event, the 200 backstroke. Lee, Li and sophomore Marissa Cominelli helped shorten the Tigers’ lead by sweeping the event.

Freshman Katie Evans won the 200 breaststroke event and Ferrell took third, putting Harvard in the lead, 13 points in front of Princeton. Junior Sherry Liu and Ramsey finished 1-2 in the 500 free.

“The energy from hearing teammates and fans cheering is absolutely contagious,” junior Shori Hijikata said. “There's nothing quite like swimming the last 50 of a 200 butterfly and seeing a crowd of faces cheering for you on the last turn; it makes you forget about how much your body is hurting and reminds you that you're racing for the team.”

Yale and Princeton came back, shutting out Harvard in the 100 fly and taking top spots in the 1-meter dive. Freshman Geordie Enoch put Harvard back into action with a win in the 200 IM, but the fate of the meet came down to the last event—the 400 free relay.

“The swimmers were giving 110% in every race, and I'm incredibly impressed with how hard everyone fought on both days,” Moore said. “On the diving side, we all had some fantastic dives and we all had areas where we can improve.”

Lee, Johnson, freshman Gabby Sims and junior Kendall Crawford touched the wall just .21 seconds behind Princeton. Taking second place in the event gave Harvard the tie against Princeton.

Harvard also recognized its six seniors—Ferrell, Moore, Cassie Corneau, Kelsey Hojan-Clark, Faith Martin, and Sarah Sumner—for their contributions to the team in the Senior Day ceremony that was held before the meet on Saturday.

“As a team, I think today was the epitome of coming together and fighting under pressure,” Hijikata said.

—Staff writer Katherine H. Scott can be reached at katherinescott@college.harvard.edu.