Senior Katy Hinkle had success in the short freestyle events at the Rutgers Invitational, finishing in first place in both the 50- and 100-yard freestyle races. Classmate Kate Mills also had two first-place finishes.

The Harvard women’s swimming and diving team had a winter break filled with delayed flights, Caribbean bugs, and consecutive days of racing. But despite everything, including the quick turnaround this past weekend, the Crimson came out of the break successful.

“We had some really fast swims across the board,” co-captain Christine Kaufmann said. “The goal was to finish the season strong. We really just wanted to get out there, race some different events, and try some new race plans out. The team did a strong job with that.”

The weekend began with the two-day Rutgers Invitational, where the Crimson came close to dethroning the No. 13 Minnesota Gophers, who held off Harvard, 274-250. On Sunday, the Crimson convincingly won against University of Pennsylvania, 192-105, in its first and only meet at home this season. With the win and close second-place finish, Harvard hopes to build momentum into next weekend’s Harvard-Yale-Princeton meet.

HARVARD 192, PENN 105

While three consecutive days of racing took a toll on the Crimson, the team refused to show it, starting its meet at Blodgett Pool with four wins in the first four races.

“It was pretty emotional for a bunch of us,” Kaufmann said. “Personally, I’ve been swimming [at Blodgett] since I was nine or so, but in general the senior class was looking forward to racing at home. There’s something special about racing at home.”

Harvard began in a dominant fashion, taking first and second place in the 200-yard medley event. The women continued their success in the next race, taking the top three spots—led by Kaufmann—in the 1000-yard freestyle.

In the third race of the day, senior Kate Mills easily won the 200-yard freestyle, while sophomore Laura Evans led a one-two-three Crimson finish in the 100-yard backstroke along with sophomores Caroline Weaver and Carol Lin. Later, Evans led another three-peat in the 200-yard breaststroke with senior Katherine Pickard and junior Helen Pitchik.

Harvard saw three more one-two-three finishes against the Quakers, with sophomore Christine Hughes winning the 100-yard freestyle event ahead of two teammates, junior Monica Burgos and sophomore Camille Hendrix. In the 100-yard butterfly, co-captain Ali Slack quickly took the lead, while sophomores Kelly Robinson and Lin battled it out for second and third.

In the last three-peat of the day, sophomores Weaver, Hughes, and Clare Foster easily outraced their counterparts in the 200-yard medley.

“Those girls have been training extremely hard,” Kaufmann said. “It’s always good to see underclassmen have strong races because we’re going to need them to keep the momentum for the next couple of years.”

In the diving well, freshman Schuyler Moore and sophomore Brittany Powell led the charge in the 1-meter event, placing first and second, while senior Jenny Reese finished ahead of the pack in the 3-meter dive.

Reese and senior diver Tanille Panioque celebrated their last meet at Blodgett by competing in the 200-yard freestyle relay, an event in which each diver raced 25-meters along with the rest of the 2011 class.

“Our class has been very fortunate because we’re still just as close as we were freshman year,” senior Katy Hinkle said. “To have Jenny and Tanille race, it was a great way to end our senior meet.”

RUTGERS INVITATIONAL

Before its win over the Quakers, Harvard placed second at the Rutgers Invitational, falling 24 points shy of No. 13 Minnesota, but over 100 points ahead of Rutgers and Toledo.

“That’s a huge success for our team,” Kaufmann said. “Minnesota is a very good program, and we were very excited to race them this weekend.”

Hinkle and Mills led the charge for the Crimson, with each taking two first-place finishes. In the 50-yard freestyle, Hinkle finished in 23.66, just .01 ahead of Minnesota’s Meagan Radecke. In the 100-yard freestyle, Hinkle finished ahead of freshman Jenna Gregoire. Mills took the top spot in the 400-yard individual medley and broke two minutes in the 200-yard butterfly.

“It was a lot of racing, which is great because at this point in the season, it’s something we like to do and have the chance to swim that much,” Hinkle said. “Rutgers and Minnesota have a lot of great swimmers, so to get a chance to compete out of the Ivy League was exciting as well.”

Other highlights of the two-day event included the relay races, where Harvard placed first in the 200- and 400-yard freestyle relays, beating Minnesota in each race by half a second.

“I loved doing the relays at Rutgers because relays are such a team event,” Hinkle said. “To swim against Minnesota that was 13th overall [and] to put up some good relays and then win some was great.”

Representing the diving team, Moore placed third in both the 1-meter and 3-meter diving events, while classmate Brittany Powell placed fifth and sixth in each event, respectively.

—Staff writer Alex Sopko can be reached at sopko@fas.harvard.edu.