Jumbos place fourth at NESCAC's, achieve season goal

At the beginning of the season, women's swimming and diving coach Nancy Bigelow said that she expected her team to start off slowly, then peak at just the right time and finish the season with a bang.

Bigelow's prediction was accurate, as the Jumbos capped off their 8-2 season with a fourth place finish at NESCACs this past weekend in Wesleyan, Connecticut. Tufts' 914 point finish was the first time the team scored above 900 points since the event started in 2001, and its fourth place finish was the first time the team finished above sixth since then. The Jumbos finished behind Williams (1,711.5), Middlebury (1,479) and Amherst (1,241).

"It was absolutely a terrific meet, it was fantastic," Bigelow said. "We would have loved fifth place, but fourth was a dream come true."

In fifth place behind Hamilton after the first and second day of competition, the Jumbos made their move past the Continentals (889) on Sunday. Colby took sixth place (818), while Connecticut College (724), Bates (581), Bowdoin (541), Wesleyan (522.50) and Trinity (481) rounded out the bottom five.

"It was an amazing weekend," senior tri-captain Amanda Bloom said. "Everyone swam so well and people dropped times in every race. It came down to the very last events, which was really exciting."

Williams, Middlebury and Amherst were all but shoo-ins for the top three places, but Tufts emerged as the leader of the second tier of schools vying for the final seven spots.

"It was nice to win the competition inside the competition," Bigelow said.

The squad was led, as it has been all season, by two time all-American, senior tri-captain Mika Sumiyoshi, who finished third at the meet with an individual score (not including relays) of 90 points, almost 10 percent of her team's total output. Sumiyoshi finished behind only junior Kate Kovenock (96) of Conn. College and Hamilton third-year Brittany Achin (92).

The senior competed in three individual events. On Friday, she won the 200 yard individual medley with a time of 2:06.96, .08 seconds ahead of Bowdoin freshman Kate Chapman. The time was good enough to qualify Sumiyoshi for nationals in the event.

"I was really surprised by the 200 IM actually" Sumiyoshi said. "When I looked at the clock at the end I was really excited. All the hard work paid off, so I was happy about it."

Sumiyoshi also touched the wall first in the 400 IM on Saturday, once again over Chapman, but this time in 4:31.33, almost two seconds ahead of the runner-up. Her nationally-qualifying time was .06 seconds away from breaking the NESCAC championship meet record.

"She was really challenged by [Chapman], but whatever she threw at her, Mika was ready," Bigelow said. "She has a reputation of being an extremely tough competitor, and this meet was a true statement about her."

The sprinter also went beyond her usual regimen to swim the 200 breaststroke. Two hours before the race, she cut her finger on a razor in her bag while grabbing for her towel, causing a wound that didn't stop bleeding for over an hour. The wound didn't slow her down, as she finished fourth and qualified for nationals with a time of 2:28.80.

Sumiyoshi competed in four relay events as well, including the 200 and 400 freestyle, in which she and sophomore Katie Mims, and freshmen Alaina Thiel and Dierdre Cannell achieved national B cut qualifying times.

Freshman Jess Bollinger and Thiel were the only other individual swimmers for Tufts to surpass the national B cut mark. Bollinger did so in the 400 IM, finishing behind Sumiyoshi in sixth place with a time of 4:39.36. Thiel was able to do so in both the 50 and 100 free events, placing ninth in the 50 (24.60) and fourth in the 100 (52.96).

"The freshmen were awesome," Bigelow said. "Making it into the top eight as a freshman in this competition -- that's hard to do."

Thiel was particularly impressive, breaking a school record every time she stepped in the water for her individual events. She surpassed the Tufts mark in the preliminaries of the 50 free, 100 free, and 100 back each morning, only to break each of those records later that night in the finals of each event.

"Alaina had the meet of her life," Bigelow said. "There was a lot of pressure on her, and she was outstanding every time."

In the relays, Tufts' 200 medley relay of Thiel, Cannell, sophomore Meghan Wallach, and senior tri-captain Kierstyn Thayer took fifth place, swimming to a national B cut time of 1:50.61.

The diving squad also proved crucial to the Tufts effort. Senior Beth Wecksell and sophomore Jess Schwartz placed fifth and fourteenth in the three meter competition, while Hamilton had only one woman place twelfth.

"The diving points were key, those two were one of the main reasons we passed Hamilton on the last day," Bigelow said.

Win or lose, the Jumbos were spirited throughout.

"Our theme was Mardi Gras, and everybody loved our tee shirts and decorations, Sumiyoshi said. "So many people came to cheer for us, even girls who didn't make NESCAC's, and some of the boys even came."

The meet marked the end of the NESCAC careers of Tufts' five competing seniors: Bloom, Thayer, Sumiyoshi, Wecksell, and classmate Bridie McElroy.

"The seniors really came through," Bigelow said. "They all did a great job and have had excellent careers at Tufts. This meet was a real testament to their personalities."