Tufts sets bar high for upcoming season

The women's swimming and diving team struggled last season, losing six straight meets to open the season before salvaging a win in its seventh and final non-tournament meet against Wheaton College. Though Tufts has a young team this year, the Jumbos are optimistic they will be able to build off last year's late-season success and steadily improve throughout the winter season. 

"This year we are focusing an being more competitive at dual meets and championships," senior tri-captain Amanda Wachenfeld said. "We want to improve our dual meet record from last year and have a strong showing at the NESCAC Championships in February, and improve over our place from last year's [NESCAC] meet."

But that might not be an easy task, given the team's lack of both experience and polished talent, at least early in the season. There will be growing pains, but there will also be plenty of opportunities for growth and development. Coach Nancy Bigelow understands that the underclassmen may be overmatched at first, but she expects them to improve over the course of the season and become dependable contributors.

"You need the horses to run the race and I'm not sure we have studs yet, but we will find that out soon," Bigelow said. "We need both newcomers and returning team members to step up and fill the void left by last season's graduates."

For their part, the Jumbos have responded by setting lofty goals for themselves and are committed to improving. Senior tri-captainKathryn Coniglio hopes to see the team score a top-three finish at the NESCAC Championships in February, which would be a considerable leap from their seventh place finish last year. She would also like to see several Jumbos compete in the NCAA Div. III Tournament in March, and is hopeful that improved preseason conditioning and more effective practices will help them reach these goals.

"Pre-season captains' practices were more rigorous than they’ve been in years past, and we are definitely in better shape than we have ever been at this point in the season," Coniglio said. "We have also adopted a slightly new training regimen this year, in which we do a lot of race pace training, [because] getting used to how it feels to go fast in the water will definitely help us win some meets in the fall semester."

Tufts opens its season with a tri-meet on Nov. 22 at Middlebury against the host school and Keene State College. The Middlebury Panthers trounced the Jumbos 190-108 last year and are coming off a solid season in which they went 4-4. Tufts hopes the outcome will be different this time around, as the team will have three full weeks of training under its belt by then, including a small relay-only meet on Nov. 1 that was not scored and will not factor into the team's dual-meet record. Bigelow views the first meet as a good time to assess the strengths and weaknesses of her young team so she can adjust practices as needed.

"We are preparing for Middlebury by working hard in the pool and the weight room, and by trying to stay healthy," Bigelow said. "Middlebury will give us a indication of how our training is paying off and help us gauge just exactly what type of shape we are in and how much more work we still will need to do to get to where we want to be in February."

The Jumbos are looking forward to the meet and expect their hard work in the pool to pay off. On top of the usual motivation to win, they are out to prove that they are a better team this year.

"Middlebury is always a nail-biter," Coniglio said. "There is definitely a lot of anticipation around this meet, and I can tell we are going to jump at the chance to show Middlebury that we are a different team than we were last year."