Men’s Swimmers Split, W. Lose Two

The men’s swimming team split its second dual meet of the season on Friday in Philadelphia, topping the Penn Quakers and falling short of the Princeton Tigers. The Red overcame Penn with a score of 177- 123 and lost by a score of 199-101 to Princeton.
Out of 16 events, Cornell won five. It was a very successful meet for junior Phil Baity, who recorded two individual victories in the 100 and 200 back and also as the lead leg of the 200 medley relay. Joining Baity in the relay were Nick Campbell, Jackson Wang and Brad Gorter. The relay team came in more than a second ahead of Penn, the second- place finisher, with a time of 1:33.87
Junior tri-captain Wes Newman placed first in the 200 free, almost a second in front of Penn’s Pat Gallagher and almost five seconds ahead of the third place finisher, with a winning time of 1:40.66. Newman’s win marked the second first-place finish for Cornell.
Phil Baity recorded wins in both the 100 and 200 back, with times of 51.55 and 1:52.88, respectively. Baity’s win in the 200 back was indisputable — he triumphed over the second-place Princeton swimmer by two seconds
Senior tri-captain Brad Gorter recorded a top finish with a time of 21.31 in the 50 free. Similarly, following Princeton’s Doug Lennox by .22 seconds, Wes Newman came in second in the 100 free with 46.47.
The women’s team fell on Friday to both Princeton and Penn with scores of 204-93 and 217-83, but it was far from blind-sided.
“This meet was a little different than last weekend because we honestly had no shot at winning,” said senior captain Leah Tourtellotte. “The teams were so separated that we all pretty much knew Princeton was going to beat both Penn and us, and that Penn would beat us, so our main goal was just to race whoever we could and win all the close races. I think we did a pretty good job of both.”
Tourtellotte’s modesty, however, undervalues her performance this weekend. She won the 100 butterfly, finished second in the 200 IM, and took third in the 200 fly. In the 100 fly, Tourtellotte beat the Princeton runner-up Emily Trautner by nearly a second with a time of 58.54. Her times for both the 200 IM (2:13:56) and 200 fly (2:10:03) were also top-5 scores.
“We definitely didn’t just stop trying and we did a good job of supporting each other,” Tourtellote said. “Regardless of the team losses, I think some individuals did pretty well. Sarah Yan had an awesome 100 free and Christina DiMaria had a good 200 fly and 500 free.”
Other top-5 finishers for the Red include Meg Farrington in the 100 back, Christina DiMaria in the 200 fly, Gretchen Schroder in 1 and 3-meter diving, Jennifer Park on the 3-meter, Sarah Yan in the 100 free and Laura DeCesare in the 200 IM.
“It’s fun to watch the divers improve so quickly and as for the freshmen, yes — they are definitely holding their own,” Tourtellote said. “The team is depending on them and they are rising to the challenge.”