After more than a month away from competitive waters, the women's swimming and diving team was welcomed back with its stiffest opposition yet.
In a tri-meet hosted by Wesleyan on Saturday, the Jumbos competed against their NESCAC-rival Cardinals and defending conference champion Williams and were handed their first two losses of the season. Tufts was neck-and-neck with Wesleyan all day and lost by a mere eight points, 154-146, but had trouble competing with the Div. III powerhouse Ephs, who won 210-90.
In the losing effort, senior Kendall Swett won two events - the 1-meter dive and the 3-meter dive - and had a career day for the Jumbos.
"It was the best dive I've put together in college," she said. "I was relaxed. We did a lot of diving over the training trip, and it all came together, which was great."
Freshman Maureen O'Neill won two events, as well, indicative of the way many of the Tufts underclassmen stepped up against the stronger competition. O'Neill won the 50-yard freestyle with a time of 24.95 seconds over Williams freshman Olivia Card-Childers and narrowly beat Card-Childers again in the 100-yard freestyle in 55.40 seconds.
Another strong freshman performance came from Megan Kono, who came very close to winning two events herself but had to settle for two second-place finishes, one in the 500-freestyle and the other in the 1650-freestyle.
Sophomore Meredith Cronin also came up slightly short in the 100 backstroke with a time of 1:02.07, as Williams freshman Ellen Ramsey took the event with a time of 1:01.25.
While the Jumbos were not without their starring individual performances, both Williams and Wesleyan brought deeper lineups to the Middletown meet.
"Not only does [Williams] have great front-line people, but they also have depth," she said. "Our depth [also] wasn't as good as Wesleyan's depth on Saturday. It wasn't who was getting first and second, but who was getting those fourths and fifths, and unfortunately Wesleyan had a few more than we did."
Despite the loss, the team was not entirely disappointed with the performance. The Jumbos knew that competing against Williams was going to be tough and were happy for the opportunity to compare themselves to a team in their own class.
"It's a little intimidating, but that competition is good because you can use the people racing next to you motivate you to make you swim faster," senior tri-captain Claire Pigula said. "It's good to get into the mindset where you get to race the person next to you. If you can beat them, then you can really surprise yourself."
The meet was the first for Tufts since the entire team headed down to Puerto Rico for an intense training regimen over winter break.
"Our bodies were really broken down after coming back from a training trip where we did thousands and thousands of yards of swimming," Pigula said. "You need rest after something like that, so when you come back from such hard work and then swimming a race in a meet like Saturday's, it's hard to swim your fastest time."
The team will now prepare to square off with MIT, whom they saw earlier this season at the MIT Invitational. At the Nov. 30-Dec. 1 meet, Tufts came in second out of six teams, falling only to the home-team Engineers. This time, however, MIT will have to travel to Hamilton Pool, which could provide the Jumbos with the advantage they need to top their Boston-area foes.
Like Tufts, MIT is coming off of two recent losses. While both teams look to avoid their third straight losses, the emotional factor will be further heightened - Saturday is Senior Day for the Jumbos.
"It's going to be a very tight matchup with them," Bigelow said. "We have strengths that they don't have, and vice versa. There's a long rivalry between us. We've been swimming against each other for 30-plus years, so it will be a very emotional day."
