Jumbos are in it to swim it ahead of first dual meet of the season

The Jumbos are looking to dive head first into a busy season starting this weekend. Returning is the triumvirate of senior captains Alli Dorneo, Anna Kimura and Jess Lee, all eager to continue upon last season’s progress.

The 2016–17 season featured the standout senior season of Amanda Gottschalk (LA '17), who placed 13th overall at NCAA Div. III Championships in the 200-yard breaststroke with an impressive time of 2:19.62 and garnered an All-American honorable mention. Junior Colleen Doolan also excited at Div. III Nationals, competing in the 100-yard freestyle in addition to the 100- and 200-yard butterfly.

Earlier last season, Tufts placed eighth overall at NESCAC Championships as well as 17th in the regional diving championships at MIT. Results, as some of the Jumbos articulated, may not be the only indicator of team success. A key element, as shared by Kimura, is the team's collectiveness, a group psyche.

“At this point everyone has the potential, everyone has put the work in,” she said. “Our team has a lot of depth and that is an asset for us. It’s not just about the top swimmers, it’s about everyone, so I think it’s important to acknowledge that everyone is working really hard and is committed to each other as opposed to focusing on the top swimmers. I’m looking forward to seeing how it goes for everybody.”

According to Dorneo, the team has been practicing since Nov. 1 in preparation for opening weekend.

“I'm looking forward to seeing all of the women's hard work in the pool and weight room pay off this season," Dorneo said.

In this sports haven, the whole seems to be greater than the sum of its parts, an impressive environment considering some of the individual talent showcased on the team. This comes from a rather interesting view of captaincy. When asked about what she has learned from previous captains, Kimura gave an honest response.

“I was fortunate to have been friends with Amanda [Gottschalk],” Kimura said. “I learned to balance swimming and life.”

There’s more to this than just a metaphysical understanding of the relationship between sports and nature, of course. In fact, this sentiment directly echoes the aforementioned sentiment of team collectiveness: Balancing swimming and life is a key element that needs to be instilled among the incoming first-year class.

This incoming Class of 2021 is composed of 15 Jumbos and features swimmers all the way from London to Washington State. Kimura and her fellow captains are tasked with the challenging task of carefully integrating them into an already stable ecosystem without disrupting the equilibrium. This comes with holding these first-years responsible to some of the same standards as the upperclassmen.

“We kind of see every member as a leader of the team in some way because ... your actions will always affect the people around,” Kimura said. “For swimming a big part can be practice [but] also at meets, whether your attitude is either really down or really positive. It doesn’t matter if you’re a freshman or if you’re a senior, being cognizant of that is something that we’ve really talked about.”

In this group environment, even the actions of the youngest can have ripple effects up the ladder, placing a challenging task on these first-years. However, this is most certainly not a one-sided relationship in which the first-years are restricted exclusively to mere positivity. The upperclassmen, once first-years themselves, will give back.

“I think we have a really strong incoming [first-year] class, which is really great. New environment, you get to make all of the choices, and you don’t know how to navigate the system. Definitely at the beginning we want to give [first-years] not only the support but the space to figure out what is happening. They have a chance to make mistakes but also figure things out,” Kimura said.

And these first-years will be part of the group competing at the first meet of the season, commencing this Saturday against Coast Guard before the team travels to Middlebury on Sunday for a back-to-back opening weekend.

“We've definitely upped the intensity in our program,” Dorneo said. “So we're all just really excited to get up behind the blocks and race and give it all we got.”