With both teams focused and energized, it should be a good matchup this weekend as the men’s and women’s swimming and diving teams host their counterparts from Harvard and Dartmouth.
The tri-meets will be held in Teagle Hall, with the men’s teams competing Saturday and the women’s teams competing on Sunday.
The men’s team is coming off a strong victory against Brown last Saturday, as Cornell won its dual-meet opener by 45 points. The team hopes to capitalize on its early win and use the early momentum to its advantage.
“The team swam really, really well,” senior co-captain Brad Newman said. “It is a great way to kick off the season, and Brown’s always a good competitor.”
Last year, Cornell split the meet, beating Dartmouth decisively by a score of 238-62, while coming up just short to Harvard, 162.5-137.5.
“We were just touched out [against Harvard],” said Newman. “It was a really close meet overall.”
The Red has been preparing for the rematch with Harvard for a long time.
“We’ve thought about this meet for quite some time,” Lucia said. “The whole team’s been putting a little extra effort into it, just being mentally and physically prepared.”
Lucia said he’s been letting the team rest a little this week, to make sure everyone is in top form tomorrow.
“[Last year] there were five races within five tenths of a second,” Lucia said. “I would expect us to beat Dartmouth, and for Harvard we are going to give it our very best shot.”
Despite the raw score, the women were pleased with the way the team as a whole swam against Brown and are looking forward to competing against Dartmouth, a team the Red feels it matches up well with.
“We don’t see it as a loss,” said senior Sabrina Kwauk, one of five captains for the women’s team. “It was actually a pretty good meet for us. We worked cohesively and as a unit. We have to look at it from the perspective of where we were and where we are now.”
“Our goal was to keep the score under 200 points, which we did,” said senior captain Rebecca Nolan. “Dartmouth is our biggest competitor, so we know we can beat them.”
Last year, Nolan and company did indeed beat Dartmouth, 154- 146, while losing to Harvard’s much larger team, 154-146.
“This is a completely different meet [from Brown],” Kwauk said. “We are well matched against their swimmers. It may come down to the last relay, so we have to maintain our focus.”
Focus has been a priority in practice for the team.
“We’ve also been working on team unity and really swimming as a team,” Nolan said.
“It is an individual sport,” said senior captain Kristin Conway.
But swimming as a team means getting up and swimming an event you don’t want to if it will benefit the whole, or being supportive of your teammates; “the little things,” she said.
“At Brown we gave it all we had, but there was something missing; maybe it was that energy,” Kwauk said. “We just need to get psyched up as a team together.”