Anne Lepesant contributed this report, and will continue to support our coverage of the Ivy League Championships all weekend.
Day 1 of the 2013 Ivy League Championships were game-changing for the athletic reputation of a typically-academic conference. Day 2 looks like it’s going to take things to a whole new level, and that’s just in prelims.
There were two earth-shaking swims in the morning session. The first came from Columbia senior Katie Meili, who is digging hard for a second-straight Most Outstanding Swimmer of the Meet award, adding to her tally an Automatic Qualifying time in the 100 breaststroke in 58.96. That cuts 7-tenths off of her old Ivy Record in the event that was set at this meet last year. There are only about a dozen women who have ever been that fast, and one of them now comes from the Ivy League.
Her teammate Alena Kluge took the top seed in the women’s 400 IM with a 4:14.85, followed by a 4:15.95 from Harvard’s Courtney Otto. Otto has been much better this season, so we’ll see how much she saved for the evening.
Shortly thereafter, Yale’s Alex Forrester broke an Ivy League (and Pool) Record of her own in the 100 fly with a 51.68. That’s a personal best, and ranks her third in the country this season – just a tenth behind another swim from this morning by Louisville’s Kelsi Worrell in 51.5.
In total, there were four women under 54 seconds in this race, including Princeton freshman Nikki Larson in 53.54 for the 2nd seed and Columbia’s Kristina Parsons in 53.89 for the 3rd seed.
Harvard’s Sara Li is the top seed in what should be an interesting 200 free battle between her (1;46.69), Penn’s 500 free champion Shelby Fortin (1:46.90), and Brown’s Kate Dillione (1:47.15). All three swimmers have very different approaches to this race, including Dillione going out in a very fast 51.55.
Among the other top seeds was Princeton sprinter Lisa Boyce in 53.45 for the 100 backstroke. Just like everywhere else in the country, after her this radce is dominated by freshmen backstrokers: Princeton’s Sada Stewart (53.70), Harvard’s Kendall Crawford (53.78), and another Harvard swimmer Danielle Lee (54.58) took the 2nd-through-4th seeds.
Live meet results available here.
Ups/Downs
More balance in the Ivy League. There will be four teams with between 7 and 9 individual A-final swims in tonight’s session, though 8 B-finalists from Harvard tips those margins in their favor.
1. Princeton University 473.5
2. Harvard University 412
3. Yale University 324
4. Columbia University 313
5. Dartmouth College 244
6. Brown University 189.5
7. University of Pennsylvania 173
8. Cornell University 147
| Women’s Ivy League | Ups | Downs |
| Harvard | 8 | 8 |
| Yale | 7 | 2 |
| Princeton | 9 | 4 |
| Columbia | 8 | 5 |
| Dartmouth | 1 | 7 |
| Penn | 2 | 7 |
| Cornell | 2 | 3 |
| Brown | 3 | 4 |