Both the men’s and women’s swimming team dropped meets against Princeton and Penn. (Michelle Feldman / Sun File Photo)
By JEFF ASIEDU
Cornell’s men’s and women’s swim and dive teams went to Princeton, New Jersey for their last Ivy League competitions of the year, a tri-meet against Princeton and Penn. Both Cornell teams dropped both meets against the Red’s rivals, leaving Cornell’s swimming teams with ample time to reflect and improve before their next Ivy League meets in 2016.
The women’s swimming team had some memorable performances, many involving senior captain Jenna Immormino who won first place in both the 50 and 100 free races and earned second and third place as part of the Red’s 400 free and 200 medley relays, respectively.
“Jenna Immormino won two individual events vs Pennsylvania and Princeton. She continues to improve while working really hard in practice,” said head coach Patrick Gallagher. “Outside of the wins, it was nice to see Micaela Luders come back in working really hard in practice,” said head coach Patrick Gallagher. “Outside of the wins, it was nice to see Micaela Luders come back in the 500-yard freestyle and Helen Hsu’s 100-yard backstroke is now the 6th fastest time in school history.”
The final scores for the women’s team in the meet were 213-87 against Princeton and 200-100 against Penn. This result does not bode well for the Red, who has high hopes for an impressive showing when it comes to Ivy League championships in the spring.
“We have to clean things up in our races,” Gallagher said. “This is a grinding time of season and some of the races looked like that. We need to clean up turns, starts and race a little smarter in some races. We have to continue to stay healthy and consistently work towards Ivy championships.”
On the men’s side of the tri-meet, the Red did not fare much better, posting a final result of 234-64 in the loss to Princeton and 217-83 when defeated by Penn. The main highlights of the meet for the men’s swimming team were senior captain Victor Luo’s second place finish in the 100 breast and third place finish in the 200 breast. The Red also got some of their most impressive finishes of the season from their men, but they were not enough to earn the Red some wins to bring the margin of the two meets closer.
“We had numerous season-best times, which means our guys are continuously getting stronger as the season progresses,” said men’s head coach Wes Newman. “Moving forward, we still have more conditioning to do, and will work towards fine tuning details to make our races sharper in the future.”
The Red now has over a month before their next Ivy League matchup, when they open up 2016 in Puerto Rico against Yale University. Both the men’s and women’s Swim and Dive teams will have their next competition at the Bomber Invitational at Ithaca College on Dec. 4, and over the next few months the teams hope to make some great improvements.
“I thought our team had a few solid performances this past weekend, and we also learned about a few areas where we need to improve,” Newman said.
All of the Ivy League matchups during the season help give the Red an idea of where they will stack up when it comes to Ivy League Championships in February, where Cornell hopes to make an impact and improve upon their sixth place finish by the men’s team and seventh place finish by the women’s team last year. For now, Gallagher said he wants his team to focus on improving before the team’s biggest contest.
“We have a lot of work to do, but a long stretch before Ivy Champs,” Gallagher said. “We have to keep focusing on getting better and becoming a stronger team.”