The Tufts men's swimming and diving team started its season with one date above all circled on its calendar: this weekend's 12th−annual NESCAC Championships, held at Williams College in Williamstown, Mass. After finishing only 237 points behind the Ephs at least year's tournament, the 24 Jumbos competing at NESCACs had high hopes that this would finally be the year that they would break through and claim their first−ever conference title.
When the water ripples had settled this weekend, however, the Ephs had once more proven their NESCAC superiority, and Tufts had — for the fourth time in five years — finished in runner−up position.
Tufts' chances to end Williams' seven−year streak of conference championships were quickly put in doubt after a disappointing showing in Friday's opening events. While in last year's tournament the Jumbos jumped out to an early lead after the first day, this year Tufts retired from the pool Friday night with 526 points, over 200 points behind Williams' tally of 740.
But while the team was never able to recover from Friday's deficit and stayed behind the Ephs in the standings for the rest of the weekend, the momentum turned around Saturday afternoon, when the Jumbos' 200−yard medley relay team — composed of juniors Michael DelMoro and Zed Debbaut, senior Patrick Kinsella and sophomore Owen Rood anchoring — squeaked by Amherst to win with a national "B" cut−worthy time of 1:32.28.
"We didn't quite do so well in the Friday session, so when we got to that Saturday session … we wanted to show the other teams that we were a force to be reckoned with," Rood said. "Together we knew that we had to set the tone, to come out and win right off the bat."
Tufts' victory in the 200−yard medley relay was its second consecutive conference title in the event. Before the four Jumbo swimmers on the 2009 relay team — of whom only Rood returned, as then−seniors Andrew Shields (LA '09) and James Longhurst (E '09) graduated and then−freshman E.J. Testa took part in another relay — won the event with a Tufts record time of 1:31.04, the Jumbos had never won a relay at the NESCAC Championships.
Yet after Rood touched the wall Saturday afternoon less than a second ahead of Amherst junior Alex Fraser, he broke more new ground, becoming the first Jumbo to be part of two NESCAC champion relay teams.
"Swimming is a huge sport for momentum, and it showed, because as soon as we won that relay, things turned around," coach Adam Hoyt said. "There hasn't historically been an expectation to win these big relays at the conference championships, but last year we won the same relay, and it was great for our team to defend that championship and win it again."
The medley relay was the first of a total of six national "B" cut performances for the Jumbos in Saturday's events, including two third−place, all−NESCAC performances — Kinsella in the 100−yard butterfly and Debbaut in the 100−yard breaststroke. The 200−yard medley relay B foursome of sophomore E.J. Testa, senior quad−captain Lawrence Chan, freshman Beckett Linn and junior Gordy Jenkins also qualified for nationals with a "B" cut qualifier of 1:33.92. In the diving events, Matera finished in third place in the 1−meter event, behind two divers from Wesleyan, sophomore Giovanni Galluzzo and senior J.P Valette. But on Sunday night, the All−NESCAC performer was able to rally from a third−place prelim finish in the 3−meter event with a score of 465.15 to ultimately close out his NESCAC career with another impressive victory.
"It felt amazing; there was no better way to end my college career," Matera said. "It was a little disappointing not to win the 1 meter, but I had much higher expectations for myself in the 3 meter event."
While the only other Tufts event victory came on Sunday with Matera's win, the depth of the Jumbos' squad — which was ultimately able to amass 1452.5 points toward the total team standings — enabled it to gain enough points to surpass Amherst for the second year in a row.
"For the team, it's always about a complete team effort; depth is what truly defines us," Hoyt said. "It's not about one individual. There are 46 guys on the team and we need the best out of every one of them…we need all the 24 guys [at the NESCAC Championships] to give their all, and that's what happened.
"We had a great meet," Hoyt continued. "We went into it with really high expectations, and on the first day we were a little off from those expectations. It took us about a day to come to terms with not meeting all of our expectations, but when we relaxed and started to have fun, I think in many ways we exceeded our expectations."
The Jumbos, who were able to qualify for nationals either this weekend or earlier in the season, will now have a couple of weeks off before heading to Minneapolis for the Div. III NCAA Championships.
"We've been tapering for a while now, so we'll start training a little bit harder and then shave and taper down our workouts once again," Rood said. "And we'll head up to Minnesota and show what we can do."
