The women's swim team wrapped up its season this weekend, sending four representatives to Shenandoah, Texas, to compete in the NCAA Div. III Championships.
Senior tri-captains Christine Garvey and Lizz Grainger were joined by sophomores Kathryn Coniglio and Sam Sliwinski, with the four swimming in a combined eight events from March 20-23.
The Jumbos ended their year with an impressive weekend - the four swimmers were able to pick up two points and finish at No. 51 overall in the meet.
On the first day of competition, the Jumbos made their mark quickly, as Garvey placed 36th in the 500-yard freestyle and Sliwinski finished 43rd in the 50-yard freestyle before teaming up with Coniglio and Grainger for the 200-yard medley relay.
In the relay, the Jumbos featured Sliwinski in the backstroke, Grainger in the breaststroke, Garvey in the butterfly, and Coniglio in the freestyle. Although the foursome finished with a strong 25th-place performance, this race proved to be the biggest challenge of the week for the Jumbos.
"The medley relay was hilarious because we're a group of freestylers and I had to swim breaststroke, which?is my worst stroke," Grainger, who is also a news editor for the Daily, said. "But we managed to have fun and start the meet off with some smiles."
The following day, the foursome swam the 200-yard freestyle relay and placed 24th with a time of 1:38.78, and Garvey finished in the same position in the individual medley trials.
On Friday, Garvey came close of earning an All-American honorable mention in the 200-yard butterfly with her 2:06.57 finish, good for 17th place overall. She missed out on the award by just 0.36 seconds, but she did break the 2011 school record of 2:08.67.
While Tufts did not qualify for the finals in any of the events from Wednesday and Thursday, the Jumbos saved their best for last.
The swimmers set a school record Friday morning in the 800-yard relay with their time of 7:39.61, breaking the university's previous mark of 7:42.11, which was set in 2009.
In this race, the team finished 8th in its heat and 16th overall, securing an All-American honorable mention and scoring both of Tufts' points in the process.
With that performance, Sliwinski recorded her third All-American honorable mention, while Garvey, Grainger and Coniglio received the award for the first time.
To cap the weekend off, the women smashed another school record on Saturday in the 400-yard freestyle relay, finishing 20th and eclipsing the record they set last year by 0.72 seconds.
"The last two days were our best," Grainger said. "I'm really proud we swam on our seed time in the 400 free relay and stepped it up at such a high-caliber meet. This has been an amazing end to the season for the Jumbos."
Grainger said she could not have been more pleased with the results of the final meet of her collegiate swimming career.
"This meet was the cherry on top," Grainger said. "I've been working to make it to NCAAs for four years and it finally happened. This experience has been all I've imagined and more, and I'm so happy it happened my senior year."
In a few short months, 11 seniors, including Grainger and Garvey, will graduate from the Tufts squad. But Coniglio, a sophomore, still has a lot of swimming in front of her - and she is already thinking ahead to next season.
"The meet allowed us to experience competition on a whole other level," Coniglio said of Nationals. "It gave us the chance to break away from our little microcosm of NESCAC meets and be exposed to some truly talented swimmers across the country. Attending this meet really motivated me for next season - I think we can aim to take an even bigger group to Nationals and really put Tufts on the map."
