… because it is tradition.  And because we love our seniors.

Sorry for the extended delay in the video but there was a slight problem with the website editing software.

Thanks to everybody that helped on this project… thanks to the fans for all of your comments… thanks to the presenters that were on-site for awards presentations… thanks to Chuck Yrigoyen from the Ivy League for the awesome video work and on all of the logistical work… thanks to Megan McHugo (also of the Ivy League) for the great work with the awards presentations… and to Greg Paczkowski, Jamie Holder, Ted Ernst, Phil Spiniello, Mush Masters and all of the good people at Princeton for running a first-class championship meet yet again this year…

And finally and most importantly - thanks to the Ivy League athletes for what took place this weekend - from the records broken to the unbelievable swims that took place - it was a phenomenal meet to be associated with.

Cheers,

Alex

Congratulations to the Princeton Tigers for successfully defending the Ivy League Women’s Swimming & Diving Championship in the friendly confines of DeNunzio Pool on Princeton University’s campus.

Throughout the competition, the Tigers proudly displayed a banner that stated “This Family Will Prevail”… and, in the end, Princeton did just that.

1. Princeton - 1651.5
2. Harvard - 1494
3. Columbia - 1016
4. Yale - 986
5. Penn - 959.5
6. Brown - 643
7. Dartmouth - 624
8. Cornell - 381

Princeton’s Alicia Aemisegger was crowned Swimmer of the Meet and Harvard’s Samantha Papadakis and Columbia’s Shannon Hosey shared Diver of the Meet recognition.

Thanks everybody for making this a very successful blog - I hope that you have enjoyed the coverage. Be sure to sign in on the Roll Call link (on the right-hand side) with your location and I’ll add it to our running tab. Next week we will be at Harvard for the Men’s EISL Championships blogging our little hearts out. Stay tuned as we will open the blog links in the coming days.

The top Ivy League performers in each individual event and the top Ivy League team in each relay event earn selection to the All-Ivy League Swimming & Diving first-team. The second Ivy finishers earn second team honors. The following athletes have earned All-Ivy status at the 2008 Ivy League Women’s Swimming and Diving Championship:

FIRST TEAM
50y free —

100y free —

200y free —

500y free —

1000y free —

1650y free —

100y fly —

200y fly —

100y breast —

200y breast —

100y back —

200y back —

200y IM —

400y IM —

One-meter diving —

Three-meter diving —

200y free relay —

400y free relay —

800y free relay —

200y medley relay —

400y medley relay —

SECOND TEAM
50y free —

100y free —

200y free —

500y free —

1000y free —

1650y free —

100y fly —

200y fly —

100y breast —

200y breast —

100y back —

200y back —

200y IM —

400y IM —

One-meter diving —

Three-meter diving —

200y free relay —

400y free relay —

800y free relay —

200y medley relay —

400y medley relay —

When you have something good, why would you ever mess with the formula?

Harvard coach Stephanie Wreide-Morawski realized that was the case with her vaunted Crimson sprint freestyle relay team that won the 200 Freestyle Relay earlier in the meet. So when the 400 Freestyle Relay came up - she stayed with the same cast of characters. And she was rewarded handsomely as Katy Hinkle, Ali Slack, Laura Murray and Amanda Slaight proved that lightning does indeed strike twice.

The quartet blitzed through the water in a time 3:22.79 for the win.

Columbia’s Shannon Hosey scored a major upset in the 3M Diving competition to secure vital points for the Lions in the team competition.

After qualifying sixth in the preliminaries with a 247.85 on Friday, Hosey came out and capitalized on dive after dive to turn away the defending champion (Princeton’s Katie Giarra) and 2007/08 1M champion, Harvard’s Sam Papadakis - who put up big scores in the preliminaries but had a few rotation issues in the finals and could only claim third place.

But the night was built for a mighty upset. And Hosey seized the moment by scoring 305.30 and stole the show.

… and go 1-2 in the process.

Princeton’s Monika Friedman will get most of the headlines for the win, but it needs to be noted that up-and-comer Harvard freshman Kate Mills also broke the existing Meet and Pool records with her swim time of 1:58.73.

But the records will show that the new mark for the two records are Friedman’s. After putting down a 1:58.91 — good for second seed in the preliminaries — Friedman came out firing on all cylinders to uncork a 1:58.69 and take the recognition.

Both Monika and Kate also swam to NCAA “A” qualifiers and will continue a healthy duel at the Championships.

This is shaping up to be quite the duel for the 2008/09 championship to decide!

Harvard’s Jaclyn Pangilinan took back the title in the event that is the Ivy record holder in. Although her swim of 2:13.90 in 2005 remained intact, Pangilinan’s 2:14.69 left the competition in her wake.

The senior utilized a strong third split to build an insurmountable lead that held off Princeton’s Lisa Hamming down the stretch.

Excellent swim, Jaclyn!

Princeton senior Brett Shiflett is quietly making a case at the Swimmer of the Meet designation.

Shiflett once again utilized her speed to hold off a strong challenge from Columbia’s Hannah Galey - who she beat to the wall by .2 seconds.

This marks the second win for Shiflett in the individual competition and she has a second place finish to Alicia Aemisegger in the 500 Free.

No matter what happens from here on out, however - she can look back and say that she didn’t hold anything back.

Another great swim, Brett!

Penn’s Sara Coenen (’10) took down her second individual win of the 2007/08 Championships in a Meet record time of 1:57.58. The record, which shaved off .01 seconds from Harvard’s Lindsay Hart’s mark a year ago came after a preliminary swim that found Coenen as the second qualifier to Princeton’s Meredith Monroe.

But in the final, the Quaker left absolutely no doubt as she took nearly a full two seconds off her swim from earlier in the day and took down the record in the process.

Hart finished in fourth place.