The 2004 Ivy League Women’s Swimming and Diving Championships will take place this Thursday through Saturday at Blodgett Pool on the campus of Harvard University. Princeton, who will be looking for its fifth-straight League crown, won last season's event with 799.5 points.

In preparation for the Championships, the League’s head coaches took time to give their thoughts heading into the meet.

Brown
2003 Ivies: The Bears finished third in the team standings. Liz Daniels ’04 won three individual events. Brown won three of the five relay events.

Head Coach Peter Brown: “Our top performers this year have been Liz Daniels and Emily McCoy. The highlight [of our season] is the Ivy League Championships where our team has an exciting and fun opportunity to swim and dive against some great competition. There will be lots of close races [this year] that will determine the eventual outcome — the depth in the conference appears to be as strong as ever in every event.”

Columbia
2003 Ivies: The Lions were fifth in the team standings. Jessica Braun ’04 had a strong swim in the 50 free, finishing second. Teresa Herrmann ’05 was third in the 1-meter dive; she was the meet’s Outstanding Diver in 2002 at Harvard.

Head Coach Diana Caskey: “We have had a solid dual-meet season with a lot of great performances across the classes. Rookies Mary McCue, Lauren Morford and Kelly McConnell have trained and raced well all year long. Sophomore Susannah Knox has led that class this year, while the diving duo of Grace Coyle and Teresa Herrmann continue to be the standouts for the juniors. Columbia will graduate a great senior class whose leadership has been one of the highlights of the 2003-04 season. We have had some good dual-meet wins, but we are focused on Ivies as the highlight of the season. The Ivy championships should be very exciting as a lot of great times have been posted in-season, and all eight teams are really poised to have tremendous meets.”

Cornell
2003 Ivies: The Big Red finished eighth in the team standings. Jessica Brookman ’06 was fourth in the 100 fly, just 24 one-hundredths of a second out of third.

Head Coach John Holohan: “Jayme Majek, a senior and our team captain, Jess Brookman and [diver] Kristin Rayhack have had good seasons to date. We implemented performance standards to make the team this year. [We] won close meets against West Point and Colgate. For us, this is a building year. We are looking forward to the challenge of Ivies.”

Dartmouth
2003 Ivies: Dartmouth finished seventh in the team standings. Dana Charles ’06 made the final of the 100 breast and finished sixth.

Head coach Joann Brislin: “Lauren Gilhooly, Melissa Kern, Cary Telander, Jenny Kunkel, Dana Charles and Lizzie Rippe are our top performers this year. Winning the URI Invitational for the second straight year [was a highlight this season]. The team was CSCAA Academic All-America for fall term 2003. The [Ivy] meet will have added excitement with 24-place scoring. We will see another heat of great racing, school records broken and step-up performances that may affect the final placing in the meet.”

Harvard
2003 Ivies: Harvard was the runner-up for the 2003 team title. Emily Stapleton ’05 and Michelle Bright ’06 swam to a first-place tie in the 200 back. Renee Paradise ’04 won the 3-meter dive.

Head coach Stephanie Morawski: “Our motto is that we work as a team and every swimmer/diver plays a role. We’ve had a great team attitude, and for this meet we are focusing on ourselves. [We] have trained hard and are ready to race. If [we] swim or dive to [our] potential then great things are possible.”

Penn
2003 Ivies: The Quakers were sixth at last year’s Ivy championship meet. Kathleen Holthaus ’04 was second in the 1,000 free and fourth in both the 500 and 1,650 frees. Katie Stores ’05 was second in the 100 free.

Head coach Mike Schnur: “Our best performers this year have been Kathleen Holthaus and Cammie Villarreal in distance free; Annie Tudryn, Ashley Rader and Jen Block in breast; Stephanie Colson and Katie Stores in sprint free; and Rachel Zappalorti, Ali Bretherick and Sarah Jeffers in fly. Our highlights this season were our two incredibly competitive meets with Harvard and Yale. Even though we lost by 13 points to Harvard and one point to Yale, they were exciting, well-swum meets. This year’s Ivy championship will be extremely competitive, especially with the new scoring system. Many of the final placings won’t be determined until the last event."

Princeton
2003 Ivies: The Tigers won the team title for the fourth straight year. Sarah Fraumann ’04 was a standout in the meet, sweeping the distance frees, while Stephanie Hsiao ’05 won the 100 breast.

Head coach Susan Teeter: “Sarah Fraumann, last year's swimmer of the meet, and Stephanie Hsiao both are ranked nationally in the college pools with their performances so far this year. [Our] sixth straight undefeated Ivy dual-meet season was our highlight so far. I think it'll be the fastest top eight we have seen [at Ivies] in some time. This is the first year we are scoring to 24, so I am anxious to see how that effects the League and the racing with all eight teams. This is the first year in some time where we could have numerous teams at NCAAs and that is great for Ivy League swimming and diving.”

Diving coach Greg Gunn: “The 1M competition will feature Cornell’s Kristin Rayhack, Yale’s Melanie Loftus, Princeton’s Michelle De Mond and Columbia’s Grace Coyle. Each of these ladies could prove to be the 1M Champion. The 3M competition will feature Loftus, De Mond, Coyle and Harvard’s Annika Giesbrecht.”

Yale
2003 Ivies: The Bulldogs were fourth at last year’s Ivies. Melanie Loftus ’05 won the 1-meter dive, and Paige Harazin ’04 took gold in the 200 free.

Head coach Frank Keefe: “Moria McCloskey in the backstroke events and Paige Harazin in the 200 free are [our] main people. The battle with Harvard at the HYP meet was a season highlight. Princeton is probably the favorite, followed by Harvard, Brown and us.”

Diving coach Ryan Moehnke: “Melanie Loftus has had our best performances to date this year. She has qualified to the Zone meet. Kathleen McKeon has also been solid throughout the year, picking up some top finishes. This will be my first Ivy League championship, but I know that there are some standouts in the league. The top five places on each board will be very competitive.”