With the NESCAC Champion-ships quickly approaching, the women's swimming and diving team continued its stampede through conference meets, sweeping Saturday's tri-meet against Bates and Wheaton. Led by three-time winner sophomore Megan Kono, the Jumbos took down the host Bobcats, 188.5-105.5, before solidifying the strong outing with a 183-116 drubbing of the non-conference Wheaton Lyons, pushing Tufts' record to 8-1 on the year.
Kono, the current Tufts record-holder in the 1,000- and 1,650-yard freestyle events, swam a 5:09.79 en route to winning the 500-yard freestyle -- within five seconds of the Tufts record -- and posting a "B Cut" qualifying time for the NCAA Div. III championship meet. In the process, Kono distanced herself from Jumbo freshman Annie Doisneau, the runner-up, by over 15 seconds.
"I was surprised that I got the cut, but it was definitely a boost for me," Kono said. "I've had some pretty good races but also some races that were difficult to get through, so it was definitely a huge confidence boost for me and for the team as a whole."
"Megan had a fantastic race, and it really sets the tone for our team because every meet, she goes out there and kills herself," senior tri-captain Katie Swett said. "For our great freshman class to have someone like Megan to look up to, it lets them know that they need to push themselves. It's easy to be tired right now, so having Megan go out there and swim that great time gives people a little more incentive."
In addition to her speedy performance in the 500-yard event, Kono dominated the 200-yard freestyle, winning by over two seconds in 1:57.55. In the same event, freshman Valerie Eacret was out-touched at the wall by Bates freshman Kara Leasure, missing out on a second-place finish by a mere 0.41 seconds. In the last event of the afternoon, Kono cemented Tufts' sweep by placing first in the 200-yard freestyle relay, teaming up with Doisneau, classmate Maureen O'Neill and freshman Courtney Adams to edge Wheaton's top team by 0.26 seconds.
Although Saturday's winners were evenly spread among the three competing schools, the Jumbos' incredible depth allowed them to surge ahead with crucial points late on Saturday. Vastly outnumbered, the Wheaton and Bates squads seemed overmatched in relay events, as Tufts routinely entered six squads to its opponents' two.
"We do have a much larger team than either Wheaton or Bates, and we always have a big presence on the pool deck as compared to the other teams," Swett said. "In a meet, even fifth place gets one point, so our depth gets us those last points which really add up in the end. You know that so many people are behind you, that the majority of the pool deck is brown and blue, so it really helps."
"We have a tradition here that we always want to be the loudest, the most spirited and the most excited team on the deck, and that really resonates with our numbers," Kono said. "When I was swimming my 500 freestyle, I felt that I wasn't swimming by myself because I could see everyone up on the sideline, that wall of blue on the deck. You don't swim alone when you're at Tufts."
The Jumbos' energy has been apparent in the young freshman ranks, as Doisneau continued her outstanding rookie campaign at Tufts by capturing first in the 200-yard butterfly in addition to swimming as the third leg of the 200-yard medley relay team with classmates Eacret, Paulina Ziolek and O'Neill to capture second place in the meet's opening event.
Likewise, O'Neill dominated the short-distance freestyle events, placing first in the 50-yard and second in the 100-yard. Swett, who won three individual events in last week's dual meet at MIT, placed second in both the 200-yard breaststroke and the 200-yard individual medley, narrowly missing out on first place by under two seconds in each race.
Eacret was just under a second away from setting the program record in the 50-yard butterfly but settled for first place in a dominating performance, winning in 27.25, over a second ahead of Wheaton's Samantha Farrell. Freshman Kathryn Russell rounded out the swim winners for Tufts, taking first in the 1,000-yard freestyle, well ahead of runner-up and teammate Meredith Cronin. Cronin, a junior, also finished second in the 200-yard backstroke, while Ziolek placed second in the 50-yard breaststroke to round out the list of top point-getters in swimming events for the Jumbos.
On the diving board, junior Kelsey Bell took first in the 3-meter dive and third in the 1-meter dive. Classmate Lindsay Gardel placed second in the 1-meter in an uncharacteristic day for the duo, which had captured first in the 1-meter in every meet since Dec. 5.
For the Jumbos, only this weekend's Middlebury Invitational at MIT remains between now and the NESCAC Championships, to be held over the last full weekend in February at Bowdoin. It appears, though, that the meet with the Panthers and Engineers the will serve only as a tune-up for the championship meets, as Tufts has already defeated Middlebury once this season and MIT twice. Following the meet, the Jumbos will begin tapering, letting their muscles relax before the heavy grind of NESCACs.
"These weeks of rest will be huge for us," Swett said. "We taper better than any other team in the NESCAC and really come to Championships a completely different team. We try to stay off of our feet and try not do any extra walking, just to try to get our bodies back to normal."
Still, with two weeks of pure rest ahead, the Jumbos refuse to look past this weekend's invitational, seeing it as an opportunity to further better themselves against strong Div. I competition, such as Northeastern University, for the looming big meets.
"We'll be swimming some really good teams next weekend, and I think it'll put us in our place a bit," Swett said. "We're done with our dual meets and have a great record, and everyone's really excited about that, but they also know that Amherst and Williams are in our conference. I don't think that being too cocky will be a problem, but our record will definitely bring us in with a positive attitude."
"It's a great confidence boost, but you have to move forward," Kono said. "I know a lot of the girls have been completely focused on NESCACs and Nationals, and I think it's great to swim good meets. However you do, you just take it and move on, get back in the pool and remember the days ahead."
We've seen it a thousand times. Some no-name, young actress with striking blue eyes and impeccable -- assets? -- is cautiously tiptoeing through a dark room wielding a sharp object.
Next, sinister music stirs a captivated audience as a dark figure seizes the girl, who shrieks shrilly. Everyone knows what happens next: There is a struggle, and eventually the murderer becomes the murdered as he plummets to his death falling through a nearby window onto a conveniently placed metal spike or is shot and slain by a dashing male friend of the heroine who she thought was dead.
Recently, horror films have become entirely too predictable. We acknowledge that once in a while everyone wants to scream and have a little bit of thrilling fun. But we have amusement parks for that. And good horror flicks. Does anybody recall the glory days of "The Shining" (1980) and "The Silence of the Lambs" (1991)?
In the following weeks, a couple of scary movies are coming out that are sure to succeed in the box office but fail to quench our thirsts for thrills and gore. "The Unborn" may very well be the stillborn child of "The Exorcist" (1973) and "Fiddler on the Roof" (1971). The film consists of a Megan Fox double being haunted by the dybbuk, an evil spirit from Jewish folklore, of her twin brother who died during childbirth.
We have several problems with this film. First, our bible, the Sacred Scriptures of Rotten Tomatoes, gave this movie a 14 percent approval rating. That means 14 percent of surveyed reviewers gave the film favorable reviews. To put things in perspective, "Death Race" (2008) tripled the score of "The Unborn" receiving a 42 percent approval rating. That's right. A film about a hardcore British convict competing in a deadly car race got 42 percent.
Furthermore, we have problems believing the story behind "The Unborn." Of course, we understand that this is the movie business and it's not reality. Yet, we still cannot get past one fatal flaw in the plot: the discrepancy between the twins' ages. In ads for the film, the boy is pictured as a young, ten-year-old kid, whilst his twin sister is probably twenty. We could understand if the boy were a fetus -- an evil fetus, obviously -- or if he were twenty like his sister. Are we supposed to believe that humans age more rapidly than dybbuks? We cry foul.
Also, watch out for "My Bloody Valentine 3D" and "The Uninvited." The former is nothing special; it has the stereotypical sexy teens, parties and even death by pickaxe. But hey, it's shot in 3D.
In "The Uninvited," everyone's favorite soft-core actress, Elizabeth Banks of "Zack and Miri Make a Porno" (2008), goes loco as an evil nurse/stepmother. Not since "Misery" (1990) has any female been cast as such a menacing character, but, when played by a comedic actress, we do not expect the antagonist in "The Uninvited" to give us goose bumps.
Horror films in modern America are similar to Winona Ryder's clothes: Their ideas are usually stolen and poorly presented. Vince Vaughn as Norman Bates in "Psycho" (1998)? Come on. We do foresee, however, a glimmer of hope in "The Wolfman," set to release in November. Although it is another remake attempt, it has a star-studded cast (including Benicio Del Toro and Anthony Hopkins) and is co-written by Andrew Kevin Walker ("Se7en" (1995), "Sleepy Hollow" (1999)). Until then, we've got our worn down VHS copies of "Halloween" (1978) to keep us awake at night.
