Eastern Summary

Brown News Wave

The Brown Women's Swimming Team was crowned the 1996 Eastern Women's Swimming League Champions, regaining the title that has been absent from the Smith Swim Center since 1987, the last time Eastern's were are Brown. The team met it's biggest goal of the year by placing a total of 23 swimmers in finals. Sixteen swimmers and one diver scored points, demonstrating the tremendous depth of this young team.

"We went into the meet viewing each of the six sessions as a meet in itself. We knew that if we "won" each session, we would probably win the whole meet" explained fourth year Head Coach Matt Kredich. Brown clearly won the first session, where both relays put themselves in fine position for the finals, and where Bruno placed two swimmers in the finals of each of the three swimming events. Laurel Naversen '97 and Tania Belisle-Leclerc '99 qualified second and fourth in the 500 free, Megan Reha '99 and Christine Jensen '97 second and eight in the 200 IM and Kari Klassen '98.5 and Heidi Sheckley '98 second and forth in the 50 freestyle. Four Brown swimmers did not have an individual event Thursday morning, so Brown was not revealing it's full strength that day. Mandy McKnight '98(200 IM) and Mary Bean '98 (50 free) also made the consolation finals of their events, and Caity Citrin '98 finished 11th in the 1 meter diving. "We came away from session I with the knowledge that we were ready to swim fast, we just had to be smart and consistent," explained Kredich afterwards.

The evening session (Session II) began with Brown's first relay championship in 6 years. The team of Megan Reha '99, Mary Bean'98, Heidi Sheckley '98, and Kari Klassen '98.5 crushed all challengers while executing nearly flawless relay starts. Session II also saw Laurel, Tania, Kari, Megan, and Christine all swim faster in finals than they did in the morning. Megan Reha set a new school record in the 200 IM (2:05.24), breaking a 7 year old record held by Darci Lanphere '88. Laurel, Megan, and Kari all earned second team All-Ivy honors for second place finishes in their events. The evening finished with a third place finish by the 400 medley relay, featuring a lifetime best of 57.39 in 100 backstroke from Jensen.

Session III, Friday morning, was the session that turned the tide of the meet decisively towards Brown. Extremely aggressive racing against a groggy field put a total of 10 Brown swimmers and 11 swims into finals, while 4 were in the consolation finals. Two of those swims (100 breast, 3rd, 1:06.20, and 100 fly, 6th, 58.50) were from Erika Salazar '99, and both were lifetime bests. Tania Belisle-Leclerc began the morning with a best time (even though she was unshaved in preparation for Canadian Olympic Trials) in her specialty, the 400 IM. '98 qualified for the consolation finals of the 400 IM. Laurel Naversen swam a best time (1:52.38) in qualifying first in the 200 free. The finals of the stroke events would be Brown dominated - Heidi Schambra '97, '98, and Christine Jensen in the 100 back, Erika, Alisa vonHartitzsch '97, and Mandy McKnight in the breaststroke, and Erika, Megan Reha, and Kari Klassen in the 100 butterfly. Mary Bean and Heidi Sheckley swam best times in the 200 free, earning second swims, and Kate Connell '97 and Sandy Yoon '97 also made the consolation finals in the 100 breaststroke. Said Kredich, "We put ourselves in position to take an intimidating lead into the third and final day. Unfortunately, the fourth session (Friday night) was relatively our worst session."

Yale and Harvard each had their best session of the meet and moved ahead in placing on almost every swim. Although some of Brown's finals swims were faster than in the morning, many were a bit slower and lower placing. Highlights included a great medley relay by Christine Jensen, Mandy McKnight, Erika Salazar, and Heidi Sheckley, an outstanding 100 backstroke by Vanessa Cho to finish second in the event, and great swims in consolation heats by Heidi Sheckley and Sandy Yoon, each of whom dropped over a second from their prelim times. The biggest moment of the evening was provided by Kari Klassen in winning the 100 butterfly for Brown's first individual Eastern title in 5 years. Brown finished the evening with a solid 800 free relay that garnered a second place, and took a 26 point lead over Harvard and a 40 point lead over Yale into the final day. Heading into the final day, Kredich knew his young team faced its biggest challenge of the year.

"The third morning of a championship meet is tough. It's the last day of a long season, and many teams let the fatigue from two long days of racing combine with the finality of the day, and experience a letdown. We had talked several weeks before about making Session 5 our best, knowing that the meet could be won or lost in that session. We knew we would have to swim very aggressive races, and Vanessa Cho, our first swimmer of the morning, set the tone the for the session with an inspiring 200 backstroke where she demolished and demoralized her heat in the first 100, and held on to win the heat and qualify 6th overall. The rest of the morning featured smart and aggressive, if not pretty swimming from everyone. Yale and Harvard swam well too, but we put ourselves in a position where they would have to come up with the meet of a lifetime that evening to catch us."

The evening session was one big celebration, beginning with a great 1650 from Tania Belisle-Leclerc, who took her third fourth place finish of the meet, and continued with all of the 200 backstrokers dropping at least a second from their morning swims. Christine finished second in the 200 back with a 2:02.57 (her first lifetime best in that event in four years), Vanessa finished fifth, and Heidi Schambra finished 11th. The 100 freestyle saw Kari Klassen '98.5, the morning's fifth place qualifier, claim her second individual championship of the meet. Megan Reha, who had had a frustrating morning swim and barely qualified 16th, had an inspiring swim at night and won the consolation heat from the outside lane, finishing 9th. Alisa, Naomi, Mandy, and Sandy dominated the consolation heat of the 200 breaststroke, and Erika Salazar came from 7th place at the 100 to finish 3rd in the 200 butterfly.

With only the 400 free relay left, Brown had a 20 point lead. This meant that Bruno had to finish at least eighth to win the meet. This brought on a unique predicament. Kredich explained: "We have had the best relay in the league all year, but Yale has always been very close behind us. We knew that we had to avoid a DQ at all costs, so we told everyone "safe starts". But it had also been a goal of ours all year to win the last relay, so we definitely didn't want to give it to them. We needed perfect, safe starts." Months of practice on relay starts paid off, and every exchange was fast but obviously legal - no "close calls". Brown was even with Yale on the first two legs (Megan and Christine) but Laurel pulled ahead on the last 25 of the third leg, giving a small lead to Kari. That lead disappeared on the start, as the Yale swimmer took a big chance and had a perfect start. Yale and Brown were even on the second 25, but Kari kicked in the turbo boosters on the 3rd 25 and demolished her competitor, and held off a furious charge on the last 25 to win the relay by .06 seconds! We had won the relay and the meet! Pandemonium ensued. The celebration was "Definitely one of the highlights of my life", claimed Kredich.

With the graduation of only two seniors, and commitments from some of the country's top seniors, the prospects for the 1996-1997 season are good, although Kredich hesitates to make predictions.

"Next year is a new season, and I know the league is going to be extremely competitive. It is important to remember that this year's team won Easterns, and no one can take that away. Next year's team starts the year with no dual meet wins and no points at Easterns. We have to earn everything, and no one is going to give us anything. But," smiles Kredich, "we really like winning. It seems to have made us more hungry. We're going to be very good."