After weeks of intense training and sunshine, the women's swimming and diving team braved Saturday's snow storm to race against Pitt in a rare non-Ivy showdown. HARVARD  138 PITTSBURGH  163

The Panthers sent out some chills of their own, narrowly stopping the Crimson's last minute surge, 163-138.

Although the travel schedule, which began with a trip to Logan Airport at 5:00 a.m., and the vigorous winter break training probably tired the team, Harvard put those outside factors out of mind to stay in contention.

"We barely beat them in the first relay and then they came right back to win the 1,000," said junior backstroker Ana Cenanovic. "Neither team could build momentum because we both fought for every last point."

The Panthers were led by their triumvirate of senior distance specialist Samantha Chabotar, junior backstroker Beth Grube and freshman breaststroker Melissa Kosinki.

Each won two individual events, some in team season-best times.

The Crimson battled these three powerhouses by winning most of the other events. In fact, Harvard remained within a 10-point range until the end of the meet. The last relay was worth 12 points, meaning the 25-point final margin was somewhat deceptive.

In fact, the outcome came down to the last two events: the 200 individual medley and the 400 freestyle relay.

Needing a 1-2 finish in the I.M., Harvard took no chances by putting junior standout Nancy Jo and freshman sensation Liz Baxter in the line-up.

"The end of the meet had a lot more intensity than most of our meets," Baxter said. "We knew it was extremely close and Coach [Steep] Wriede told us beforehand that we needed to sweep it.

"I didn't swim my best, but Nancy raced extremely well to win and I ended up touching out two of their swimmers to take second."

The team still had to win the final relay, however, to capture the victory. Harvard took the early lead but eventually falling to Pitt's sprinting depth by only a few tenths of a second.

"We ended up losing this extremely close meet, which never feels good," said sophomore breaststroker Karen Milkoski. "The team competed really well, though, especially since we were exhausted from travelling that day and returning from Hawaii only a few days before."

The Crimson had several individual watershed moments. Freshman Janna McDougall proved herself one of the top the East's top sprinters by easily taking the 50 freestyle win.

McLean also wowed the crowd with an impressive performances on the diving boards and platform. She out-flipped all but one of Pitt's national caliber divers on the 1-meter event, which isn't her specialty.

"This meet was a great chance to compete tired," said McLean. "We didn't really have to worry about the outcome because it wasn't an Ivy meet, but it did provide a chance to get the mid-season kinks out."

Harvard's overwhelmingly positive final outlook on the meet, shows the intense focus it now places on performing at its best at Ivies in the end of February.

"This meet was a great transition between our mid-season training and the huge meets about to come," Jo said.

The Crimson wants to use this meet to establish itself as an Ivy League power, but in the process it has achieved a season-long goal.

"We showed the Big East that the Ivy League can be extremely competitive in athletics," said sophomore diver Kristin Hennings. "Our team isn't going to back down from any challenge."