Women's Swimming and Diving | Record-breaking performances highlight historic finish at NESCACs

    At a meet historically dominated by Amherst and Williams' purple, all it took was a few record-breaking performances from the women's swimming and diving team to put a little baby blue on the winner's podium.
    Williams, which has won all nine official NESCAC Championships, continued its stranglehold on the meet, finishing in first with an astounding 1,827.5 points, just under 400 points ahead of second-place Amherst. Yet arguably the most impressive performance of the meet was the emergence of Tufts, which nestled comfortably into third place after its best dual meet season in over 10 years.
    "The meet was simply amazing," senior tri-captain Katie Swett said. "We swam out of our minds, and it took an entire team effort over the course of the whole weekend. We had coaches coming up to us throughout the meet to congratulate us and tell us how we stepped up. You could just tell that we were physically and mentally there."
    "The weekend flew by so fast," sophomore Megan Kono added. "It's simply surreal. Everyone was so elated on the bus ride home, a time when everyone is usually tired and silent, but this time everyone was cheering the whole time. To see so much of your work pay off in that way, it's completely energizing, and to be able to celebrate an amazing season like that made everyone go nuts."
    The three-day meet, held at Bowdoin College, certainly tested the capacity the Jumbos had to grind it out through six swim sessions. Going into the meet, Tufts had its sights set on finishing third, feeling as though surpassing Middlebury and Conn. College was a more realistic goal than catching Amherst or Williams.
    Kono led the stampede in the waters in Sunday's finals, blowing away the competition in the 1,650-yard freestyle en route to a NESCAC meet record time of 17:11.91. Coming into the meet seeded at 17:59.91, she finished just under 17 seconds ahead of Williams senior Mary Wilson Molen. In the process, Kono shattered her own Tufts record by 20 seconds and qualified for the NCAA Nationals A-cut. In addition, she set the Jumbo record in the 500-yard freestyle, finishing in 5:01.60, good for fifth place at the conference meet.
    "I was shocked," Kono said. "The mile is a mental race, and if you get in thinking about what time you need to get, you're killing yourself. It's been giving me so much trouble this year because I haven't been able to shut my mind off, but I just put my blinders on and did what I had to do."
    "Sunday, Megan was just mentally ready," Swett added. "You could just tell that she had the right frame of mind and was ready to race. She's very tough on herself and even she was beyond words after the race. I think even half our team was crying."
    Swett turned in a career performance of her own, putting up NCAA B-cuts in the 200- and 400-yard individual medley and the 200-yard breaststroke. In the 400-yard IM, she was just two seconds off the Tufts record and set the all-time Jumbo mark in the 200-yard breaststroke with a time of 2:25.45, something she defined as the perfect end to her career on the Hill.
    "I couldn't imagine a better end," Swett said. "It's just a great feeling to look up at the clock at the end of a race and be happy. But, at the same time, it was a real team effort. It's hard because swimming is seen as an individual sport, but it's amazing to see how much the team can propel one's results forward."
    A large part of the Jumbos' success this season has come due to the emergence of several prominent freshmen, all of whom played a drastically important role in Tufts' rise through the NESCAC ranks. First-year Courtney Adams, for one, was part of four record-breaking swims, setting the new Tufts record individually in the 100-yard backstroke (1:00.18) as well as taking part in the 400-yard medley relay, the 200-yard freestyle relay and the 800-yard freestyle relay.
    The 400 medley, comprised of Adams, Swett, junior Meredith Cronin and freshman Valerie Eacret, set the new Tufts mark in 3:58.26, while the 200 freestyle relay team of Adams, freshmen Paulina Ziolek and Annie Doisneau and sophomore Maureen O'Neill and the 800 relay team of Doisneau, Adams, Eacret and Kono cemented themselves in the Jumbos record books as well.
    Eacret, one of the roster's many expert sprinters, set the new Tufts record in both the 50- and 100-yard butterfly events, turning in times of 25.83 and 57.51, respectively, to round out her rookie campaign on a high note.
    "We have a huge leadership that comes with the senior class that we haven't seen before, but it also comes from the underclassmen that stepped it up and swam their hearts out," Kono said. "We swam like one body. It wasn't a bunch of individuals in the pool; it's like everyone got into the pool at every race."
    Rounding out the top performances for the Jumbos was freshman Katie Russell, who turned in a record-setting performance of her own, finishing the 1,000-yard freestyle in 10:30.21 to take third place, dropping 27 seconds off her seed time to win the event.
    Now, with the majority of the Jumbo roster done competing for the year, Kono and junior diver Lindsay Gardel, who finished second in both the 1- and 3-meter diving events, turn their attention to the NCAA Championships, to be held the weekend of March 18 in Minneapolis, Minn.    
    "NESCACs was beyond what I hoped for, but I would like to hold my place or get somewhere around where I'm seeded," Kono added. "The air at Nationals is electric. This year, I've been thinking all year that I want to make it back to Nationals, and having known my goal the whole year really helps. I don't know what will happen, but I know that I'm a lot more prepared mentally."
    While Swett, who has qualified for the Nationals B-cut, says that while she only has a chance to surpass the qualifier in the 400 IM, this weekend's team achievements more than make up for it.
    "I wouldn't be upset at all if I didn't make Nationals because this is such a lasting memory," Swett said. "I couldn't be upset with anything because it's out of my hands right now. Last year, my time would have gotten me into Nationals by four seconds, but this year I'm right on the cusp. It's sort of a waiting game right now."