Tomorrow through Sunday, the men's swimming and diving team will compete at Williams in the annual NESCAC Championships. Williams is in search of its 10th straight conference title, and after the Ephs' 201-93 regular season win over the Jumbos, it appears that Tufts will not be the biggest threat to their hopes. That title will more likely belong to the Amherst Lord Jeffs, who managed a 145-98 victory over the Ephs in January.
Still, regular-season results do not always correlate with outcomes later in the year. The 2011 Ephs lost to the Lord Jeffs, 132-11, in the regular season but beat them in the NESCAC Championships by more than 100 points, 1,741.5 to 1,614.5.
For the Jumbos, consistency at NESCACs has not been an issue — they have secured a top three finish in each of the past six seasons. Last year, Tufts finished the meet with a total of 1,318 points, good for third place behind Amherst and first-place Williams.
This year, a strong senior class — co-captains Owen Rood and Joe McLoughlin, Peter Debbaut, E.J. Testa, Alex Strittmatter and Lou Tamposi — will return to the championships looking to use its experience to the team's advantage.
"We've got a great group of leaders, starting with our senior class," head coach Adam Hoyt said. "They will lead the way this coming weekend for us.Having graduated eight guys from our conference team last season, however, we'll need all 24 guys to step up and score points to have a great meet.Our non-conference team members had standout swims a few weeks ago at the Wheaton Invitational, and those performances, coupled with our women's team's [third-place finish at NESCACs] this past weekend, give our conference team a ton of confidence."
Returning from last year's third-place team is sophomore Johann Schmidt, who won the three-meter diving event at the 2011 championships and finished second in the one-meter dive.
Rood and Testa also had great performances at last year's conference meet. Rood finished fourth in the 100-yard freestyle and fifth in the 50-yard event, and was part of the second-place 200-yard medley relay and third-place 200-yard freestyle relay teams. Testa placed fourth in the 50-yard backstroke, fifth in the 50-yard butterfly and seventh in the 100-yard backstroke and swam for both the second-place 200-yard medley relay and the fifth-place 400-yard freestyle relay squads.
"We have a lot of talent on this team," sophomore Craig Olynyk said. "We have taken into account [Hoyt's] advice for which races we will swim — each swimmer has a limit on the number of races he can swim [at NESCACs] — and will give it our best this weekend."
The Jumbos will need to be at their best to challenge the Ephs and Lord Jeffs, who were 6-2 and 7-1, respectively, in dual meets this season. Williams is led by junior Paul Dyrkacz, who is returning after winning Swimmer of the Meet honors for his performance at last year's championships.
A third-place finish is no guarantee, especially since Conn. College has a chance to challenge Tufts. The Camels have improved since last year's fifth-place finish in the conference meet, and they defeated the Jumbos 150-130 in the regular season. Camels senior Tim Walsh — who set records in all three backstroke events last year and has swept the races for two consecutive years — looks poised to repeat his success this weekend.
The three-day event will take place at the Samuelson-Muir Pool at Williams College beginning tomorrow. Preliminary heats each morning will be followed by championship races in the late afternoon. Live results and a complete schedule will be available at www.NESCAC.com in the coming days.
