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The Tufts Daily
Where you read it first | Thursday, March 28, 2024

Swimming, diving teams look to make a Jumbo mark on NCAA Championships

2015-01-21-Tufts-Womens-Swim-v-Wellesley02
Tufts women's swimming and diving compete against Wellesley College on January 21, 2015.

Six Jumbo swimmers and divers -- four from the men's team and two from the women's -- travel to Greensboro, N.C. today to compete in this weekend's NCAA Div. III Swimming and Diving Championships, beginning tomorrow and continuing through Saturday. First-years Kingsley Bowen and Colleen Doolan, juniors Amanda Gottschalk and Matt Rohrer, and senior tri-captain Michael Winget and senior Anthony DeBenedetto each qualified in at least one event for NCAAs and will represent Tufts on the national stage.

NCAA rules allow each invited swimmer to compete in up to three events in total, regardless of how many events for which they were specifically invited. Diver Matt Rohrer will compete in both the one-meter and three-meter diving events. Still, with the Jumbos racing in up to 15 swimming events and Rohrer competing in the two diving events, this year is one of the best chances in recent years for both the men's and women's programs to rack up high point totals and make their mark nationally.

For Doolan and Gottschalk, being invited to the championship is a tremendous feat itself, as no woman from Tufts has competed at NCAAs since 2013.Doolan was invited to compete in the 200-yard butterfly, which she has cited as her strongest event, and is seeded eighth. She has chosen to swim the 100-yard fly and the 100-yard free as her two other races. Doolan’s time of 2:05.60 in the 200 fly at the NESCAC Championships that won her first place would have placed her just outside the top eight at last year’s NCAA championship. The winning time for the event last year was 2:00.43 from McKenna Newsum-Schoenburg of Emory College.

“My goal for the season was getting a B cut and being close to being invited, but I wasn’t expecting an invite,” Doolan said. “At NESCACs I just had a really good race and ended up qualifying.”

Gottschalk was invited for two different events: the 400-yard individual medley (IM), in which she is seeded 20th, and the 200-yard breaststroke, in which she is seeded 11th. Gottschalk’s time of 2:19.05 in the 200-yard breaststroke would have placed her eighth last year, while her 4:29.79 time in the 400-yard would have placed her 16th. Gottschalk will also compete in the 200-yard IM.

Since the women’s NESCAC championship happened a week before the men’s, the women have had a month off since their last competitive swim. As a result, recent training has been different from during height of the competitive season.

“We’ve been training so hard all season and we’ve gotten to our peak physical condition — we have great fitness — there’s not really enough time between the NESCAC meet and the NCAAs to really increase our fitness levels at all,” said Gottschalk. “Instead of focusing on getting into better shape, we’ve been focusing on some of the more technical aspects of our races.”

Winget will travel to his third consecutive NCAA Championship and has been invited to take part in the 100-yard backstroke and the 200-yard backstroke in which he is seeded eighth and third, respectively. At last year's NCAAs, Winget came away with fifth in the 100-yard back and 14th in the 200-yard back, earning him his third All-American award and a new school record in the 100. Last year’s 100-yard back title was taken by Williams College junior Benjamin Lin, who recently defeated Winget at the NESCAC Championships by 0.59 seconds. However, in the 200-yard back at the NESCAC Championships, both Winget and Bowen beat Lin.

Bowen — the NESCAC Rookie of the Year — will be competing in the 100-yard backstroke, 200-yard back and 100-yard fly. He took home his first conference title from the NESCAC Championships in the 100-yard fly with his time of 48.92, which would have placed him only four milliseconds off of last year’s eighth place. In the 100-yard back, he is seeded 15th with a seed time of 49.55, and he is seeded fourth — just behind Winget — in the 200-yard back. Ahead of this meet, Bowen has been working specifically on hand-positioning in his fly event as well as pacing himself for the 100-yard backstroke.

DeBenedetto, who has been invited to swim in the 200-yard fly, will be taking part in his first ever NCAA Championship. DeBenedetto qualified with a time of 1:49.99 to tie for the 14th seed. He will also swim in the 100-fly and 100-back events.

“I was so excited because I thought that I was going to be ending my whole career on Sunday [Feb. 21], and then I found out that I had an opportunity to swim again and to keep going for another month,” said DeBenedetto. “I’m still feeling that shock that I’m still going.”

Three-time NESCAC champion and two-time All-American diver Rohrer will be attending his third consecutive NCAA Championship. At the NCAA Zone Diving Qualifications he earned 499.0 points for 11 dives in the three-meter, making him the top seed from New England for this week’s competition. Rohrer is seeded 10th nationally in the three-meter. He also placed second in the one-meter competition at the NCAA Regionals, narrowly missing out on sweeping both events, putting him in prime position to finish in the top eight in that competition as well. Last year, Rohrer finished sixth in the three-meter competition and eighth in the one-meter competition to earn All-American honors in both.

Rohrer will perform 11 dives at the meet. Five are “voluntary” dives which are simpler, and the other six are more complicated dives such as twist dives. With only one opponent who placed above Rohrer in the three-meter dive last year returning for this year's national championships, he is in good shape to improve upon his success from last year.

“I’m most excited to compete with my twisting dives,” said Rohrer. “At my meets with twisting dives tend to stay really consistent, more so than the other dives. It’s always nice to end with those dives because it means I’m wrapping up on a good note.”

Tufts swimming and diving -- especially the women's program -- has come a long way from previous years, sending a total of six athletes between the two teams when in past years only two to three have taken part. This marked improvement was seen during the NESCAC Championships, when the men’s team placed second for the first time in five years.

“Our team camaraderie has really taken off this year in such a way that as my senior class this year has been striving toward it since our freshman year,” said DeBenedetto. “But this year has really been one that we’ve seen people really invest in other people’s races, and other people’s practice strategies. Having your team be as invested in you as you are in your team has been really powerful in getting people motivated and getting people to swim fast.”

Head coach Adam Hoyt oversaw both the men’s and women’s teams this year. With only these six students remaining in season, training has become more efficient and more focused on the specifics needs of these individuals.

“Maintaining their fitness level has been key, and maintaining their strength has been key,” said Hoyt. “And then trying to do the little things better – being sharper on our turns, trying to be sharper on our underwater kicking, trying to be sharper on our breakouts from underwater kicking to swimming transitions.”

The Jumbos hope to bolster the reputation of Tufts swimming and diving, as the men look to improve last year’s national rank of 23rd place in Div. III while the women look to put Tufts back in the national spotlight. The action kicks off tomorrow and concludes on Saturday.