Jan. 27, 2007

Final Stats

PHILADELPHIA, Pa. -- The Penn women's swimming and diving team won the final event of the day to post a 155-145 victory over Navy, Saturday afternoon at Sheer Pool in Philadelphia.

Navy closes its dual meet season with an 11-2 record, while Penn improves to 11-4 on the year. The win was the seventh-straight in the series for the Quakers, but was far closer than last year's 46-point margin of victory for Penn.

"I'm disappointed in the final result, but am pleased with our performances today," said Navy women's swimming head coach John Morrison. "We raced better than we did two weeks ago, so we are moving in the right direction as we begin to gear towards the Patriot League Championship.

"Penn swam a great meet. This was their last home meet of the year so they were honoring a great senior class, and it was an emotional meet for them. I'm pleased our girls rose to the occasion."

The Quakers outscored the Mids in three of the first four events to take a 46-28 advantage, but Navy answered by winning the next five events and taking a slim 85-84 lead.

Aubra Thomas (Sr., Pittsburgh, Pa.) started the Navy run of victories by winning the 100 breaststroke in a time of 1:05.65. Mallory Dietrich (Fr., Pittsburgh, Pa.) followed by winning the 200 fly in a time of 2:05.10, then Thuy-Mi Dinh (Fr., Anaheim, Calif.) won the 50 free with a clocking of 23.91. After Katie Griffin (Jr., Ellicott City, Md.) won the one-meter diving event with a tally of 286.13, Dinh returned to the water and won the 100 free in a time of 52.72.

The Quakers placed first and second in the next event, the 200 backstroke, to take a 99-89 lead, but Dietrich won the 200 breast (2:22.24) and Tara Chapmon (Fr., Virginia, Beach, Va.), who earlier in the meet won the 1000 free, won the 500 free (5:02.36) to pull the Mids to within 114-112.

Penn's Tara Gillies won the 100 fly to increase the margin to seven points, but Griffin won the three-meter springboard (304.95) and Kelly Zahalka (So., Richmond, Va.) won the 200 individual medley (2:10.86) to make it a one-point meet at 142-141 heading into the final event of the day, the 400 freestyle relay.

Dinh swam the opening leg of the Navy relay, while Lauren Brandes was the first swimmer in the pool for the Quakers. Brandes held a 16-hundredth of a second advantage after 50 yards, then opened up a nearly one-second advantage at the end of her leg. The remaining Penn swimmers opened up the lead even more over each of the remaining legs and ended up completing the event in a time of 3:31.37 to Navy's 3:34.20 to secure the dual meet victory.

Navy will next compete Feb. 3 at the Bucknell Invitational.