This past weekend the Cornell men’s and women’s swimming and diving team competed at home against league rivals Harvard and Dartmouth. In both of the tri-meets, the Red and the Big Green fought back and forth throughout the meet to decide the final verdict.On the men’s side, the meet came down to the final 400-meter free relay to decide the outcome. Although the Red lost 152-148 to Dartmouth and 207-93 to Harvard, its performance shows strong early season speed and will help garner success in future meets.On the women’s side, in another very close meet the Red just missed out on defeating Dartmouth. With a final score of 157-143, and 186-109 to Harvard, the Red was unable to pull out a win at its home opener.Although both the men’s and women’s teams did not have the results that they had initially desired, both teams showed strong initial performances for early season races. Their individual and team events posted strong overall times and have potential to continue to improve as the season progresses.“The most influential element was the fierce competition,” said sophomore fly swimmer Nicole Jibrine. “The fight between Dartmouth and us was extremely close the entire meet. We really fought our hardest and the last event of the meet determined the winner.”This competitive spirit will play a strong role in helping the Red find success later on in the season. The next time that the Red will face Harvard and Dartmouth is at Ivy League Championships, at the end of the season. The team-wide training trip to Puerto Rico over winter break will help both teams acquire more late season speed and help outscore Dartmouth at Championships.This coming weekend both the men’s and women’s teams will be traveling to Philadelphia, Pa. for their away tri-meet with Penn and Princeton. The race will take place at 3:30 pm at Sheerr Pool. This weekend will give both teams the opportunity to improve upon last weekend’s results.“The results of this weekend have definitely given the team the fuel and motivation to keep fighting to achieve a victory,” Jibrine said. “We were so close to beating Dartmouth that the fire from the Harvard/Dartmouth meet will help psych ourselves up for our meet verses Penn and Princeton this Friday.”This fire will be important to help the Red to hopefully get its first win this coming weekend and continue to be competitive throughout the Ivy League. This weekend, the Red has another opportunity to compete against two more Ivy rivals.Penn — coming off of a loss to Columbia — and Cornell should prove to feature hard fighting and close competition throughout the entire meet. It may come down to the final relay again like last weekend.The Red looks to capture its first win of the season on the road. Both teams look to have strong showings as they continue their regular season Ivy tri-meets.
Original Author: John McGrorty