CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- History was made on Saturday afternoon from Blodgett Pool, as the Cornell women's swimming and diving team defeated Harvard for the first time since 1983 with a 152-148 victory in its Ivy League opener. Cornell also took down Dartmouth, 165-135 to sweep the weekend. The Big Red won three events on the afternoon and had a swimmer place in the top three in 11 of the 13 events held.
The Big Red started the tri-meet with some fireworks, as the 200-Yard relay team of Ming Xu, Amy Wu, Emilie Boisrenoult, and Priscilla Wongso claimed the victory with a time of 1:41.76, three-hundredths of a second ahead of Harvard's A-team.
Cornell was not finished picking up victories, as Audrey Holden (1:03.56) and Amy Wu (1:04.55) went 1-2 in the 100-Yard Breaststroke. Hojung Yoon rounded out the winning for the Big Red, taking home the 200-Yard Backstroke with a time of 1:59.82, over a second ahead of Harvard's Kate Hazlett.
It was also a 2-3 finish in two events for Cornell, as Anna Gruvberger (54.98) and Boisrenoult (55.04) earned points in the 100-Yard Butterfly, while Kate Li and Jungmin Yoon were separated by 0.13 seconds in the 200-Yard Freestyle.
Other highlights for the Big Red in the sweep included second-place finishes from Marie Williams (100-Yard Backstroke), Katherine Yee (200-Yard Butterfly), and Audrey Holden (200-Yard Breaststroke) and separate third-place finishes for Wongso in the 100-Yard Freestyle (50.91) and Hojung Yoon in the 200-Yard IM (2:04.37)
But with the stakes at an all-time high, the battle between the Crimson and Big Red came down to the final event, as Cornell needed a good showing in the 400-Yard Freestyle to ensure the victory over Harvard. The Crimson won the race with a 3:21.09, but the Big Red did enough to clinch the victory, as the quartet of Wongso, Li, Joelle Ohr, and Boisrenoult finished second with a time of 3:23.13 to snap a 38-meet losing streak dating back to when the Big Red defeated Harvard by a 73-67 margin in Massachusetts on Feb. 11, 1984.
With Saturday's sweep, Cornell matches its best start in Ivy League competition since the 1997-98 season. That year, the Big Red swept Penn (159-118) and Columbia (153-147) to begin conference play. The Big Red has also won six out of its last eight matchups against the Big Green.
UP NEXT
The Big Red will hit the road one more time before Thanksgiving break next weekend as it travels to New Jersey for more Ivy League action against Penn and host Princeton. Competition will begin at 11:00 a.m. on Saturday, Nov. 18 from DeNunzio Pool.
