Mix of old and new swimmers gear up for a new year

With a return of the majority of its talent, the women's swimming and diving team is looking to improve on its sixth place finish at last year's NESCAC Championships. As a young team with a great number of freshman and sophomores, the Jumbos will depend in large part on strong senior leadership in order to reach their goals.

Three-time New England Coach of the year Nancy Bigelow will be back for her 21st year at the helm of the team. Senior tri-captains Becky Ullman, Shayna Burke and Angela Russo will emerge as leaders on the squad to supplement Bigelow's experience.

"They have the experience that can guide and mentor the rest of our group," Bigelow said.

Two other swimmers will also lead by example. Junior Mika Sumiyoshi has two years of NCAA Championship experience under her belt. Last year she qualified for the championship contest in three different categories: the 200 individual medley (IM), the 400 IM, and the 200 backstroke. Sophomore Erica Weitz also qualified for the national meet in three events in just her first year with the team. Weitz's times were good enough to qualify in the 400 and 200 IM's, and the 200 butterfly.

Weitz is a member of a strong sophomore class that also has two other All-New England selections in distance freestyler Kate Sweeney and breaststroker Katherine Ferguson. Ferguson placed fifth in the 50 meter breaststroke and tenth in both the 100 and 200 meter breaststrokes. Sweeney finished ninth and 17th in the 1,000 and 500 meter freestyles respectively.

"Each year since I've been here we've increased our pool of talent, both in terms of standout swimmers and depth," Ullman said. "Our sophomore and freshman classes have some really fast girls, I think we are going to be able to consistently win races and follow it up with second and third places."

Standout junior diver Beth Wecksell leads the diving squad under the tutelage of coach Brad Snodgrass, in his 16th year at Tufts. Last year Wecksell not only qualified for the NCAA Championships in the 1-meter and 3-meter boards, but placed 15th in the 1-meter competition to earn honorable mention All-American honors. Wecksell will have to excel early on, as her season will be cut short this year when she goes abroad to Australia for the second semester.

Although the diving team is small, boasting just 4 divers, Wecksell believes the team uses this to their advantage.

"Although the season has just begun, I feel that the small diving team has reached its most important goal of all: forming a tight bond," Wecksell said. "Diving is 95% mental, so one of the hardest obstacles we face is getting out there and facing our fears. It's really easy to get discouraged early in the season when you have so many new dives to learn, so these close friendships drive us forward."

There looks to be no great shakeup from last year's NESCAC championships. It is a foregone conclusion that the Williams swimming juggernaut will look to take the title, after winning the second NESCAC championship last year. Williams captured its first and second NESCAC women's swimming and diving titles the past two years after recording 13 consecutive New England Championships. The team is returning almost all of its key athletes from a team that finished fourth in the NCAA Championships last year. A distant second and third behind Williams were Amherst and Middlebury, who should once again fight for second place.

"Our biggest conference competition is Bates, with whom we will probably fight for fourth," Ullman said. "However, because we're getting so fast, I think we'll see our team begin to inch up on Amherst and Middlebury too."

Bates will also return 3 former NCAA Championship qualifiers on a team that came in just in front of Tufts last year in the NESCAC Championships. Hamilton College finished fourth last year.

Tufts will get a good look at what Bates has to offer when the Bobcats journey to Medford on Feb. 1.

The team will begin the regular season at Clark this Saturday.