Saturday was the first Ivy League double dual meet of the winter.

Saturday also began a tough stretch for the men’s (9-0) and women’s (8-1) swimming and diving teams. Following an emotional week with wins over Lehigh and Army, the meet with Dartmouth and the University of Pennsylvania could have been a stumbling block before the upcoming Harvard-Yale-Princeton event.

“We see this as a tune-up for H-Y-P’s, but we are not looking past Dartmouth and Penn,” men’s captain Greg Palumbo ’03 said last week. And he was right. The women’s team beat Dartmouth 170-112 and Penn 190-110; the men’s team beat Dartmouth 182-112 and Penn 170-124.

With the loss of top diver Josh Gallant ’04 for personal reasons, the Yale men knew they were at a disadvantage.

“We’ll be giving up 28 points each meet now and need to find a way to overcome that,” James Cocks ’03 said.

They found a way quickly on Saturday, sweeping the top three places in each of the first two events. In the 1,000 freestyle, John Atkinson ’05, Palumbo and Tim Carey ’03 led the way, with Atkinson winning in 9:42.78. Their sprinting counterparts, Jack Cooney ’04, Matt Bowman ’04 and Quinn Fitzgerald ’05 took the top spots in the 200 freestyle, with Cooney winning in 1:42.57.

Alex Nash ’04 and Jimmy Veazey ’04 were double champions: Nash won both the 100 and 200 backstroke events in 51.47 and 1:51.61, respectively; Veazey placed first in both the 100 and 200 butterfly events, in 51.64 and 1:52.34, respectively.

The Yale women showed similar depth in dominating both butterfly events. In the 200, Daphna Shafir ’04, winning in 2:06.61, led Greta Mazner Gore ’06, Amy Hancock ’04 and Rebecca Fausell ’04 in a sweep of the top four places. In the 100, Mazner Gore won in 59.45, with Hancock, Rebecca Knicely ’05 and Shafir completing the top four. Susan Cooke ’03 was the day’s top performer, winning both the 100 and 200 breaststrokes, in 1:06.94 and 2:22.51, respectively, as well as the 200 individual medley in 2:07.52.

Swimmers and divers will spend the week readying for the H-Y-P contest at Harvard this weekend.