Vol. 24, No. 15	February 16, 1999

Columbia Women Surface in Ivy League Swimming

BY A. DUNLAP-SMITH

The Lions had sealed the meet by the finish of the 200-yard Individual Medley, so taking the relay at the end only sweetened the victory. And this one was especially sweet. The Columbia women's swimming and diving team had at last beat one of the Ivy League's elite squads: Yale-and in New Haven-a squad that, with Brown and Princeton and Harvard, was settled for so long in the top half of the League's standings it seemed to own the turf.

To Head Coach Diana Caskey the victory was no less than "historic," a threshold event as much about her team's future as about its past. It was the first time in the 15-year history of the Columbia women's swimming and diving program that it defeated Yale. "What it meant to us and to the rest of the competition is we're no longer the underdog," Caskey says. "We're becoming the ones whose heels are being nipped at-we have turf to protect now."

Since the November meet at Yale, the Light Blue women swimmers and divers have done just that. With last weekend's defeat of Penn in Uris Pool, the team clinched its first winning record in the Ivy League in five years. Columbia is now itself a settler in the League's top half.

Steady Improvement

The Lions' overall record stands at 7-2 with but next weekend's meet at Brown left on the regular season schedule. Compared with the previous year's 3-7 finish, the improvement is breathtaking. Yet, to leave it at that would be to overlook the steady, season-by-season ratcheting up of the women's swimming program that Caskey has worked since her arrival on Morningside Heights eight years ago.

"What you don't see in our record last year are the close losses-to Dartmouth by 3 points and Cornell by 6," Caskey says. "This year we closed that gap and have gained on the League's best teams . . . and we've been lucky." This season Caskey has had few problems with the health of her athletes.

As small as the squad is, just one member out with an injury or the flu could turn wins to losses. Only once this season did the team lose a member when Olympic gold medalist Cristina Teuscher was committed to competing at the U.S. Open in Texas. The Lions nevertheless showed their mettle by defeating Cornell in her absence.

Columbia has 19 swimmers and four divers, but to match up with the best teams, Caskey says she needs 28 swimmers. "We're really lean" is her characterization of a squad that averages two competitors in each of a meet's 16 events; Yale, she points out, is four swimmers deep-Harvard is five.

Though she's been landing more recruits recently, Caskey's squad remains one of the smallest in the League, for it (and, indeed, all Lion teams) is the victim of a singular irony. The attractions that draw student-athletes to Morningside Heights are the same ones that may draw them away from playing sports when they're here.

"They leave to explore the City more deeply through internships, for instance, or to explore their classes more deeply-and they should because that's really what they're here for," Caskey says. "But when they do leave it hurts: our small size is a real disadvantage, especially to the top teams."

Versatility and Strategy

The disadvantage, however, has sharpened Caskey into a keen strategist. If this season's results have proved anything, it's her skill, unmatched in the League, at getting the most from the resources at hand.

The Yale meet was the paramount example. To keep her team progressing, Caskey's objective for the season was to shoot down one of the top four. She marked Yale. Against the Bulldogs' depth, she pitted the Lions' flexibility. Her versatile athletes-such as Jen White (C'00) and co-captain Lyssa Roberts (C'99) and, of course, Teuscher (C'00), who holds 12 of 15 school swimming records-gave the coach a trump card to play.

Caskey deftly moved her swimmers into events where they could score the most points regardless of their specialties. Yale didn't counter, but swam its line up in its usual events. The Lions had little margin for error if Caskey's stratagem was to work. Says the coach: "Everything at Yale had to go right." Five of the races were won by less than a tenth of a second.

"That day, through the entire meet, there was a focus and determination that was more present among us than it has ever been," Katie Lynch, Columbia sophomore and sprint freestyler, says; "I was so proud to be their teammate."

The final challenge for the Lions this season is to consolidate the progress they've made by also finishing in the top half of next week's Ivy Championships at Princeton. To accomplish that would be unprecedented-but this team that Lynch calls "fiery, determined and [with] a distinctive character that's decidedly our own" is itself unprecedented.