PROVIDENCE--With an awesome display of power, depth and fast swimming, the Princeton Tigers withstood a strong challenge from Brown to recapture first place at the Women's Ivy League Swimming Championships last night with 1189.5 points.

Brown finished second with 1134.5 points. Yale was third with 571 points, and Harvard finished a close fourth with 547 points.

Despite Princeton's dominance, Bruin freshman Elaine Palmer was clearly the standout of the meet--capturing four individual events and finishing a close second in another to be the meet's highest scorer.

Palmer's times of 4:59.89, 2:05.62 and 1:00.50 in the 400-yard individual medley, the 200-yard backstroke and the 100-yard I.M. were fast enough to set new meet records.

Although the Crimson finished lower than last year, a lot of the showings during the three-day meet were outstanding. One of the most exciting performances of the weekend came on Saturday night in the finals of the three-meter diving competition. Going into the final dive, Princeton's Mary Liner held a tenuous lead of 312.5--just four points ahead of Harvard junior Pam Stone and Tiger Chris Moses, who were tied for second place.

All three executed nearly flawless dives, but Stone received scores of 8 and 8 1/2 to clinch the contest by less than one point over Liner.

"It's not much, but I'll take it," an excited Stone said after the event.

Divers Adriana Holy and freshman Cathy Josman also performed well--Holy finished fourth, while Josman moved from 13th to eighth with her final three dives.

Other good performances on Saturday night included sophomore Kathleen "Mad Mac" McCloskey's 200-yard butterfly. Seeded second at the start of the finals, McCloskey dueled. Brown's Laura Reynolds stroke for stroke throughout the grueling race, only to drop the contest by five one-hundredths of a second--the final times being 2:08.20 and 2:08.25.

Sophomore Maureen Gildea's gutsy swim in the 1650-yard freestyle last night also ranked as one of the finer moments of the meet. Bringing the entire Smith Swimming Center to its feet, Gildea came from six seconds behind Brown leader Carol Downey to pull even and challenge her for the lead at 1500 yards.

When the gun sounded to signal the final two lengths of the 66-length race, Reynolds turned on a powerful kick and churned home to take the contest with 17:09.43--less than two seconds ahead of Gildea's final time of 17:11.00.

"That was an absolutely awesome swim," Crimson coach Vicki Hays said after the race. "Maureen is mentally and physically the toughest swimmer I have ever had the privilege to work with."