The Harvard women's swimming and diving team ended its year long string of close losses to top Ivy teams on Friday night, when it squeaked by Yale 156-144 behind impressive individual and relay performances.

Senior co-captain Jen Steffen summed up the team's position best, saying, "Our team simply needed to win."

Needing to win and winning are two different things, however. The two teams battled wire to wire, see-sawing back and forth as they attempted to stay in contention. In fact the outcome of the meet was unknown until after the final relay was swum.

"Everyone always dreads a meet coming down to the last relay," Steffen said. "But it's also a time when people can step up and swim at their absolute best."

And the Crimson did that. In the last relay, senior Keiko Iwahara had an outstanding lead off leg, while sophomore Christen Deveney, Senior Sandy Stringfellow and Steffen not only kept the lead Iwahara gained, but left the Bulldog relays gasping for air amidst their wake.

"Going into the last relay I was confident that we could win," Iwahara said, "because we were all swimming well, the team's enthusiasm was incredible, and we had seen Nancy beat Kate Ivers, who is the cornerstone of their team and of that relay."

Undoubtely the defeat of Ivers, Yale's best swimmer who had narrowly beaten now-sophomore Nancy Jo in two events at last year's contest, pushed the momentum of the meet in favor of Harvard. Jo outswam her in both the 100 and 200 freestyles, winning the events by a total of less than three tenths of a second.

"The fact that she beat me last year didn't mean that she was unbeatable," Jo said. "She has always been an incredibly strong swimmer, but I still felt I could beat her because of our arduous training this season and the team's great support."

One teammate described the team's refusal to let Ivers dominate this year's meet with her expression, "There ain't no horse that can't be broken. There ain't no rider can't be thrown."

The team's enthusiasm, which members say was a major factor in the outcome of the meet, also sprang from wins in the medley relay, a freshmen sweep of the 200 butterfly with Pia Chock and Kirra Brandon and a 1-2-3 finish in the 50 freestyle by Iwahara, Stringfellow and junior Jocelyn Ludwick.

After the 50 freestyle, the Crimson faced severe competition and its cheers could not stop the Bulldogs from fighting back. Yale won the next three events to climb back into the meet.

But Harvard kept their optimism high and scored big in the 100 butterfly, led by Iwahara, and then in the 200 Individual Medley, as Jo won her third events of the night.

Without these stellar personal swims, the team would never have been in the position to win the meet with their victory in the last relay. It appears to be a milestone in their season.

"We lost all of our major meets last year by only a few points and had already lost to Brown this year," said Jeffen. "The sophomores and freshmen hadn't yet gotten to feel the exhilaration that comes from performing at your best in a close meet like this one.

"At times like those, we truly feel united as a team because we are accomplishing something that we've all worked together to achieve."