The women's swimming and diving team concluded its regular season this past weekend at the non-scoring Middlebury Invitational. With the championship season on the horizon, the Jumbos can now focus exclusively on preparing for the NESCAC Championships, which will be held later this month.
The Jumbos are a year removed from their seventh place at last year's NESCAC Championships. However, this incarnation of the team looks primed to move to the top half of the conference.
"Our team is quicker all-around than last year, and we are definitely more ready mentally to attack our races at NESCACs," senior Keri Golembeski said in an email to the Daily. "We have a great group of [first-years] that are particularly strong in stroke and [individual medley] races that will add to the talents of our returning group of girls. All in all, I think we are more well-rounded than last year."
At Middlebury, Tufts competed against familiar NESCAC foes No. 19 Middlebury and No. 8 Williams, as well as against Springfield College and the University of Vermont; the latter was the lone Div. I program at the meet.
The top highlight for Tufts was a third-place finish from the 800-meter freestyle relay team of senior tri-captains Amanda Wachenfeld and Kathryn Coniglio, first-year Jess Lee and junior Sarah Mahoney.
Wachenfeld was very satisfied with the result.
“It’s a hard race to begin with because it’s pretty long, but I felt good, especially with the place we got,” said Wachenfeld. “That’s one of the relays we’re looking forward to competing in at NESCACs, so just being able to almost have a trial run last weekend was great.”
Tufts’ top individual result was first-year Meghan Casey’s fourth place performance in the 200-meter breaststroke, recording a time of 2:32.05. Casey also recorded a 1:11.76 touch in the 100-meter breaststroke, placing seventh in the event.
“Coming in as [first-years, the younger swimmers] find it is a lot different than how you’d swim in high school or on a club team when you’re in high school," Wachenfeld said of Casey and her younger teammates. "For all of them, there was a big adjustment period and acceptance that they might not be swimming as fast as they expected to, but I think they’ve all now embraced that. That’s really shown, especially in the second half of our season with Meghan Casey this past weekend and Anna [Kimura] who two weekends ago did a really great job ... They’ve kind of gotten into the feeling of college swimming, and they’ve all been working really hard.”
After returning from a semester abroad, junior Kelsey McEvoy also had a strong showing for Tufts, placing sixth in both the 100-meter freestyle and the 100-meter backstroke with times of 56.11 seconds and 1:01.37, respectively.
The Tufts 400-meter freestyle relay also performed well. Consisting of sophomore Sophia Lin, senior tri-captain Scarlett Hao, Lee and Casey, the team notched a time of 3:47.29 to place to take fifth.
Sophomore Amanda Danielson was also in action, placing sixth in the 200-meter butterfly with a 2:20.39 time.
The Middlebury Invitational was the last competition of the regular season. Head coach Nancy Bigelow and her Tufts squad now turn their attention to the NESCAC championships, held Feb. 13-15 at Wesleyan University. According to Wachenfeld, the coach’s orders were for the swimmers to relax in preparation for the NESCACs.
“It’s a lot of resting and taking care of ourselves," said Wachenfeld. "I like it. We have a very strong team not only in terms of in the pool but camaraderie and competitive spirit, and I think that that mental attitude is really going to help us succeed at the end of the year.”
