In an ultra competitive bout, the Tufts women’s swimming and diving team fended off their longtime rival Williams College in the NESCAC Championship over the weekend. Going into Sunday, the final day of competition, Tufts and Williams were set to vie for the win with Williams only leading by 7.5 points. Yet the Jumbos emerged victorious, winning the NESCAC Championship for the first time ever in conference history, with 1809 points to Williams’ 1758.5.
Sophomore Katie Shelburne crushed the Tufts school record in the 1000-meter freestyle on Saturday by more than 10 seconds and later secured the 1650-meter freestyle school record on Sunday. Her efforts added many points to the Jumbos’ total score, allowing them to eke victory over the Ephs. While Shelburne puts the team first in all cases, she thought about breaking these records well before this competition.
“For the 1000, the record is something I was thinking about all season,” Shelburne said. “That’s definitely one of my biggest goals. The 1000 is my favorite race, it’s my best race. And so, looking up and seeing that I got the record and also personal best was one of the best feelings I felt all meet until they said that we won the meet which definitely topped it all.”
Sophomore Jillian Cudney then won the 100-meter freestyle in school record time, while her teammate junior Claire Brennan took third, putting Tufts back ahead of Williams in points. The Ephs returned the favor by taking all three podium spots in the 200-meter breaststroke event. Tufts responded with junior Alaina Kosko placing third in the 3-meter dive event, putting Jumbos back in the driver’s seat heading into the final 400-meter freestyle relay.
While winning the championship was definitely on their mind at that point in the meet, Shelburne noted how Tufts tried to stay away from any outside distractions by focusing on their races rather than the score board and their competitors’ performances.
“Generally, the consensus on deck was to swim your race, focus on yourself and then the rest will work out,” Shelburne said.
In a dramatic finish that suited the atmosphere and intensity of this competition, Cudney, Brennan, senior Mary Hufziger and junior Katelin Isakoff, secured the trophy for the Jumbos by winning the race with a time of 3:22.46, a meet and pool record. Williams followed behind by about three seconds to take silver, but the Tufts had already taken gold.
Shelburne described the team’s emotions after witnessing the clinching race.
“We all started crying, pretty much immediately. We were so happy. This has never happened in Tufts history; ... we have never beat Williams ever, we’ve never won,” Shelburne said. “We were so happy we actually did it. It’s been one of our goals all season but to see it actually happen is really, really cool.”
The women’s swimming and diving team broke 16 team records and won five events in total. Decisions for who will qualify for NCAA’s will likely come out by Monday, according to Shelburne.
