Time is now for male swimmers

Though the men's swim team has just one meet remaining, its season is far from over. Starting today, the Jumbos will compete in the NESCAC Championships held at Williams College. This weekend will be the culmination of an outstanding regular season (8-1 overall duel-meet record), but now that the postseason has arrived every team has a clean slate.

Tufts has proven that it has one of the top swimming programs in the NESCAC, especially after going undefeated in-conference. However, this will be the first time all season that the Jumbos face the top two teams in the conference -- Williams and Amherst -- both who were left off of Tufts' regular season schedule.

The Jumbos' only loss this year came to non-conference foe MIT. The Engineers were as tough as they have been in years, but the six-point loss was still hard to swallow for the Jumbos. Tufts rebounded from its loss to MIT on Jan. 21 by winning its last three scoring meets, and then competed in the non-scoring Middlebury Invitational three weeks ago as a tune-up for the Championships.

All season, coach Don Megerle has experimented with various roster configurations in an effort to produce the strongest team for NESCACs. He thinks he has finally found the right balance for maximizing team point totals, combining his experienced veterans with talented underclassmen to form a roster with few weaknesses. The final roster includes four divers and 20 swimmers. Though each team can only have 24 competitors at this weekend's competition, most of the Jumbos, who are not among the elite 24, are planning to travel up to Williams to cheer on their teammates.

"I'm looking forward to it," Megerle said. "This is my 34th New England Championship and I'm looking forward to it as much as I did my first."

If Tufts is to make some noise this weekend and improve on last year's fourth-place finish, senior tri-captain Ed Edson, sophomore Seth Baron, and junior Tyler Duckworth among others will have to be successful. By selecting four divers for the final roster, Coach Megerle obviously has confidence in the diving program coach Brad Snodgrass has developed this season.

Senior divers David Liebenstein and Connell Cloyd have been impressive all year and figure to contribute valuable points to the team total over the weekend. Freshmen stars Jonathon Godsey and Andrew Burbach have made a splash this year in Hamilton Pool, but the larger stage and increased pressure of the New England's could rattle these youngsters.

"I think we have an amazing freshman class," Duckworth said. "We only lost one senior last year and we have gained a lot of talent and depth."

The team's performance over the weekend will not only determine its final standing in the competitive NESCAC conference, but it will also determine which individual swimmers will be heading to Atlanta on March 20 to compete in the Div. III Nationals. Last year, Duckworth was Tufts' sole representative at Nationals, but expectations are much higher for this year's squad -- it hopes to send at least two swimmers down south.

"At this point in the game, it's all about how Tufts does as a team," Duckworth said. "My main goal is scoring as many points for the team."

After completing a similar regular season last year (9-1 overall), the Jumbos finished fourth in the NESCAC Championships while Middlebury College won its first ever team championship. Since last year, however, Middlebury has lost some valuable swimmers to graduation and many expect the team to fall as low as fourth at NESCACs. While Tufts will have a tough time competing with consistently strong swimming programs, Amherst and Williams, but a third place finish is definitely within the team's reach and anything is possible.

"We're probably vying for third right now," sophomore Seth Baron said. "I'm really excited."