Yale Women’s Swimming and Diving 2014-15 Schedule
NEW HAVEN, Conn—The 2014-2015 meet schedule for the women’s swimming and diving team has been established and the official season, which started on Oct. 1, is underway. The schedule includes meets against both Ivy and non-Ivy teams as preparation for the Ivy Championships in February and the NCAA Division I Championships in March.
With a strong group of freshman and returning athletes with experience competing at the collegiate level, this team will be the strongest in recent years. Captain Elizabeth Larsen will lead her teammates to the goal of improving on last year’s third-place finish at Ivy Championships and qualifying more athletes for the NCAA Championships.
Robert J.H. Kiphuth Director of Women’s Swimming, Jim Henry, and assistant coach Dani Korman are excited about the season and the variety of teams that the Bulldogs will compete against.
“Our schedule this year provides us with the opportunity to race against the best in the country across all divisions which will prepare us well for the Ivy League and NCAA championships,” said Korman.
Competition will begin on Oct. 18 when the Bulldogs travel to the University of Connecticut for a scrimmage with Central Connecticut State University and University of Rhode Island. One more scrimmage at The Johns Hopkins University the following week will round out the preparations for the regular competition season beginning in November.
The first Ivy team that the Bulldogs will face will be Columbia, at home on Nov. 14 in the Kiphuth Exhibition Pool. Columbia will provide good competition and a close meet for the Bulldogs, who were victorious over the Lions the last time the meet was held at home, two years ago.
At the end of fall term, the Bulldogs will head to the Brown Invitational Dec. 5-7.
“The Brown invite is a great opportunity to race in a prelims/finals meet before the Ivy League championship. I also believe it is really important to have a meet to re-evaluate our goals before we leave for Christmas break and training trip,” said senior captain Elizabeth Larsen.
After winter training in Cocoa Beach, Fla., the women’s swimming and diving team will return to take on Cornell on Jan. 7 and Dartmouth and University of Pennsylvania in a tri-meet on Jan. 10. On Jan. 17, the Bulldogs will compete against University of New Hampshire.
“It will be good to have some non-Ivy competition in January. We are excited to compete against New Hampshire again this year; they are a strong team with a few NCAA qualifiers,” said Henry.
The famed Harvard-Yale-Princeton (“HYP”) tri-meet will be contested on Jan. 30-31, 2015 at Harvard. Of the location of the HYP meet, Henry said, “It’s good to have the HYP meet in the same location as the Ivy Championships as it provides an opportunity to race in that pool and get a feel for the venue.”
The final dual meet of the season will be against Brown, at home, on Feb. 7. Two weeks later, Feb. 19-21, the Bulldogs will compete at the Ivy League Championships with the hopes of qualifying multiple athletes to attend the NCAA Championships in March. During the 2013-2014 season, swimmer Eva Fabian and diver Lilybet MacRae competed at the NCAA Championships, but Henry, Korman, and Head Diving Coach, Chris Bergere would like to bring more athletes this year.
Korman reinforced this goal, “We are a team with aspirations of performing at the highest level. We are setting ourselves up to have a successful championship season and will continue to have a goal of increasing our qualifiers for the NCAA championships each year.”
–Report filed by Emma Smith ’16, Yale Sports Publicity