Ben Parker/Sun Senior Editor

Cornell Women's Swimming defeated Brown at Teagle Pool on Saturday, January 25th, 2020. Teagle Pool has recently been malfunctioning, leading Cornell to host meets at Ithaca College.

November 18, 2021

Women’s Swim and Dive Split Weekend While Men’s Team Face Defeat

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This past week, Cornell men’s and women’s swim and dive teams faced their first Ivy League competitors of the season. At home, which is temporarily on Ithaca College’s campus, the Red went up against Dartmouth and Harvard in a tri-meet. 

Cornell hosted their last two home meets at the Ithaca College pool because the pools at Cornell are unreliable and have been breaking down

Both pools on Cornell’s campus have been malfunctioning because of issues with the filtering system. Once the pool needs to be cleaned out and re-setup, the varsity and club teams have to put off practice. 

Regardless of its situation, the Red women’s team (2-1) had a split weekend, as they beat Dartmouth for the first time since 2016 with a final score of 155.0-143.0.  

Sophomore freestylist Priscilla Wongso was the Red’s top performer of the day, headlining eight top-three finishes at the tri meet. Within the whole meet, Wongso was the only Cornell swimmer to receive first in her race. In the 100-yard freestyle, she earned first with a time of 52.06, just .08 seconds ahead of the second place recipient. 

The men’s team lost 159.50-138.50 against Dartmouth, and fell to Harvard 233-65. 

“It was a tough loss against both teams but it was a close meet and we collectively swam better than last weekend,” said sophomore freestylist Phil Pozdnyakov. “Dartmouth was a hard loss but we are only just beginning, and because of this weeked we’ll be starting to pick up the training so we don’t have the same result at our next meet.”

There were 13 individuals who secured a top-five placement within their events. Junior Jeremy Marcin and sophomore Matthew Warren, two members of the diving team, received fourth in the 3-meter and fifth in the 1-meter, respectively. 

“For the start of the season, and not competing for 640 days, I find that we are doing relatively okay. Obviously it’s a little weird to be back and I’m still adjusting to the competitive environment, but everything is very new and exciting and I’m really looking forward to the season ahead,” Pozdnyakov said. 

The Cornell swimming and diving team will be leaving Ithaca next weekend to head to Pennsylvania and compete in their next tri-meet. On Friday, Nov. 19 at 5 p.m. diving will go up against University of Pennsylvania and Princeton, then on Saturday Nov. 20 at 12 p.m., swimming will compete against the same schools.