In front of screaming crowds at Princeton University's DeNunzio Pool the Harvard women's swimming and diving team took third place at the Ivy League Championships this weekend.

In addition to finishing third at the tournament, two Crimson swimmers, freshman phenom Sarah Murphy and tricaptain Christen Deveney, set Harvard records in individual events.

The tournament was held at the Tigers' pool from Thursday through Saturday, and the Crimson swimmers could feel the hometown presence from the beginning.

"The crowd was pretty orange," first year Liz Baxter said. "The Princeton fans definitely filled up half the seats and there were a whole lot of pom-poms and orange T-shirts."

Murphy agreed that the hometown presence was strong.

"The pool was covered in black ad orange flags and they had banners up that were against every other team in the tournament," Murphy said. "But we aren't pro-Princeton, so I can't blame them."

Thursday's schedule featured eight events including the 500-yard freestyle, the 200-yard individual medley, 1-meter diving and the 400-yard medley relay. The Crimson women wasted little time establishing themselves as contenders for the laurel wreath.

Early in the day freshman Tina Weiner took eighth in the 500-yard freestyle finals with a time of 4:59.56 and junior Nancy Jo captured the same position in the 200-yard individual medley championship in 2:07.81.

Later in the day Crimson's top diver, sophomore Camila McLean, captured fifth on the 1-meter board finals while fellow sophomore Ali Shipley followed in sixth.

In the last event of the day the Crimson 400-yard medley relay team of Deveney, junior Corie Calfee, Murphy and freshman Janna McDougall narrowly defeated the home team to win the race in a time of 3:48.61 and capture the Ivy title.

"We had a little joke before the race that team was made up of the two old women and the two young girls," Murphy said. "I think it loosened us up a bit."

Calfee noted that many had not even expected the Crimson to be contenders in the final.

"I don't think any of the other teams looked to us as probable winners," Calfee said. "But Christen [Deveney] got us of to a great start and we just held the lead."

It was in the front end of the relay that Deveney set the school record in the 100-yard backstroke with as time of 57.02. Though she knew she was fast, Deveney said that she did not realize she had set the record when she climbed out of the pool.

For the tri-captain it was a sweet way to leave college swimming.