The women’s swimming and diving team ended their season at the Ivy League Championship meet this past weekend against their Ancient Eight foes. The Red finished last amongst the competition. Harvard won the season-ending meet with a score of 1583.5.

The Red had some solid performances throughout the three-day meet, performing far better than it had in past years. Primarily due to a strong freshman class, which was able to provide some knockout performances under pressure, the Red was able to overcome a lack of experience in the pool.

“When you looked at the leader board at the end of the night you saw a lot of freshman and sophomores standing up there, and that’s really the future of this team,” said senior Mary Cirella.

The men’s and women’s swimming and diving teams were in Rhode Island this weekend, facing Brown in their last Ancient Eight dual meet of the season. The men (6-4, 4-4 EISL) took another commanding victory, showing similar form to their performance against Columbia. The women’s team (1-9, 0-8 ECAC) failed to win its final meet of the season, or any meet this season, but some of its top swimmers did swim well against Brown.

The men’s and women’s swimming and diving teams both competed in meets against Colgate University at Teagle Pool last weekend, though with different results. The men came away with a commanding 179-102 win, sweeping all 16 contests, while the women dropped their meet by a slim 169-129 margin.

As they have done throughout the season, the men continued to improve and showcase just how talented of a team they are. Not only did the Red place first in each one of its 16 total events, but the top-2 swimmers in each race were Cornell swimmers.Just keep swimming: The men’s swim team added some longer events to its line-up, including the 800-yard freestyle relay, in which the team broke a pool record.

Women’s swimming and diving spent most of its winter break training in Puerto Rico with the men’s team. The break was designed to be a building period, with the team swimming many yards over two-a-days.

The team returned to competition with a tri-meet Jan. 10 against Yale and Navy. The young Red squad continued to grow, with strong showings by freshman Emily Dean and Heather Miller. The duo pulled a 1-2 finish in the 100-meter back. If anything, the team has only shown improvement, posting more top-5 finishes in each of its league dual meets.

Though the women have yet to have a time wide win, the growth of these few individuals is expected to help going into Ivy championships in a little over a month.

Most people think of swimming as an individual sport. It’s just one person standing on the blocks, waiting for the gun to go off, waiting to hit the water and make that perfect streamline, trying to be slick and agile as they thrust the water behind them.

But as much as swimming is about personal bests, winning by yourself and gaining recognition, it’s all towards winning for the sake of the team. Every swim counts, whether you are first or fifth, and so no matter if you’re the star athlete or not, you have to perform if you want the team to win.

“Swimming is often such an individual sport, but we are really trying to move towards a team effort and working together to win more meets,” sophomore Christina DiMaria said.