Women’s swimming finishes first in IVY and ECAC Championships

The No. 25 Harvard women’s swimming and diving team swam and dove like champions this past weekend despite having to split up the team to compete in two different competitions. The swimmers placed first out of eight teams at the 2009 Ivy League Championships meet (Feb. 26-28) at the Nassau County Aquatic Center in East Meadow, N.Y., on Saturday (Feb. 28), and first out of 26 teams at the 2009 ECAC Championships (Feb. 27-March 1) at Harvard’s Blodgett Pool.

The Crimson clinched their ninth Ivy championship with a score of 1,583.5 points (249.5 points ahead of the three-time defending Ivy champion Princeton) and took the ECAC crown with 494 points, a massive 103.5 points ahead of the field. Harvard finished the Ivy meet with six event championships, 10 school records, and 11 NCAA Championship provisional qualifying times. In the ECAC championships, Harvard took the lead at the end of each day of competition in six individual events and two relays.