The women's swimming and diving team had not dropped a contest to the Blue in its last seven matchups, entering a rare Wednesday night meet against Wellesley College. This meeting was no exception.
In a meet that saw numerous swimmers competing outside their normal events, the Jumbos rolled over an undermanned visiting Wellesley squad 183-113 at Hamilton Pool to improve to 4-0 on the season.
"It's always a very strong rivalry between us and Wellesley," said coach Nancy Bigelow, a former coach at Wellesley. "The last couple of years, it's been touch and go, coming down to the last relay. There's always a lot of respect out there between the two teams, even if this is a down year for them."
"[Bigelow] always gets us really pumped to race Wellesley, especially since she used to coach for them," senior tri-captain Kayla Burke said. "It's always a great meet, a great rivalry, and that's what drives us. It's hard, but we try to emphasize the fun aspect in it."
Despite the dominating home victory, one of the Jumbos' primary highlights came outside the confines of Hamilton Pool. Since Tufts does not have a diving facility, the divers competed at Wellesley. Junior Lindsay Gardel, who ultimately finished second to Wellesley senior Kate Sorenson, qualified for the NCAA national meet in the one-meter dive with a 258.68 total. Gardel also placed second in the three-meter dive, tallying 256.79 points.
In terms of swimming events, Tufts did not even need the last relay to cement a victory over Wellesley, which was competing in its first road meet of the season, as the Jumbos dominated right from the opening race. The 200-yard medley relay team of freshmen Kelly Moriarty, Paulina Ziolek and Valerie Eacret and sophomore Maureen O'Neill cruised to nearly a five-second win, kicking off what would be an evening of Tufts names atop the leader boards.
"This was just a great meet for everyone; we all had fun because people got to swim in fun events they don't normally swim," Burke said. "We weren't clearly killing them, and Wellesley is always great to race because they did such a good job."
Ziolek coasted to the 200-yard freestyle victory by almost three seconds and was the third leg of the 200-yard freestyle relay team, which included O'Neill, Eacret and freshman Courtney Adams.
Eacret nearly broke a three-year-old school record in the 50-yard butterfly, touching the wall in 26.80 seconds, just .58 ticks off the mark set in 2005 by Bianca Spinosa. Freshman Natalie Matheny scored her first victory on the Hill, barely out-touching senior teammate Perry Ross by .08 seconds. Ross also notched her first collegiate win in her last home meet, winning the 50-yard breastroke in 34.74 seconds, just .03 seconds ahead of Wellesley freshman Erika Buckle.
"It was nice to have certain kids step up and have an impact today," Bigelow said. "We all recognize that this is a tough week for everyone, especially the freshmen, with exams coming up, and it can be hard to grasp this stress level. As a result, we tried not to overload too many swimmers today, and I think we did a great job."
Burke was a dual winner in the 1000-yard and the 50-yard freestyle events, while senior Michelle Caswell out-touched O'Neill in the 50-yard backstroke. Other winners for the Jumbos included senior tri-captain Katie Swett in the 200-yard individual medley.
With a number of Wellesley swimmers out due to injury or sickness, Bigelow's squad treated this dual meet as a tune-up for this weekend's MIT Invitational, allowing swimmers to compete in unusual events. Sophomore Megan Kono, the school record holder in the 1000- and 1650-yard freestyles, for instance, swam the 100-yard breaststroke as preparation for the 400-yard IM at this weekend's MIT/Middlebury Invitational.
The meet in Cambridge, beginning tonight at 7 p.m., will feature NESCAC rivals Bowdoin and Colby, in addition to host MIT, Brandeis -- which Tufts has already defeated this year -- NYU and Wheaton. In the last meet of the fall semester, the Jumbos are looking forward to competing against a plethora of stiff opposition.
"There's not a lot of pressure this weekend for us because we're racing against such good teams," Burke said. "[Wednesday] was the perfect warm-up for the weekend, which will be a great meet because we will get to see a couple NESCAC schools, see what those teams are bringing."
"The meet gives us a great opportunity to test ourselves against great competition," Bigelow said. "I feel like now, we're physically ahead of the game, but we have to be ready to test ourselves mentally in a two-day stretch. It's definitely a head game, so mentally we need to see."
