Ask any member of the Tufts swimming and diving team whether the team's 7-1 dual-meet record carries any weight entering this weekend's NESCAC Championship meet at Williams, and the answer will be the same.
"It doesn't matter," said junior Mike Kinsella, one of the 25 Jumbos headed to Williamstown for the season's final, and most important, meet. "Williams is amazing. Amherst is really good. You never know what's going to happen until you get there."
The NESCAC Championships does not take into account dual-meet wins and losses. Rather, it's an all-or-nothing event in which each team's final standing depends entirely on what it does during the three-day long meet.
"This is the culmination of everything we've put in this season," senior quad-captain Brett Baker said. "This is it."
Every team in the NESCAC will compete in heats across Williams' eight-lane, 25-yard pool beginning this Friday and continuing through Sunday. And although Williams is heavily favored to take first, Tufts and Amherst are poised to square off in a battle for second.
"Amherst is going to be tough," senior distance-freestyle swimmer Steve Ward said. "It's down to the two of us."
Tufts did not face Amherst during the regular dual-meet schedule this season. The Jumbos were beaten soundly 178-111 by Williams in January for their only blemish of the year.
Still, expectations for the top three slots at the meet were solidified after Middlebury, typically a dominant NESCAC swimming foe, was forced to pull out of the championships as the result of an alcohol-related incident.
As to the alleged hazing incident involving the freshman members of the Panthers' team, the Tufts swimmers expressed disappointment about not being able to swim against the Panthers.
"It would be fun to actually have them in the [NESCAC Championships]," Baker said. "If we're going to beat them, it'd be good to do it [at Williams at the Championships]. It's a big bummer that they can't swim at the end of the season. We'd really like to beat them."
The Jumbos are packing a powerful punch going into this weekend's meet, and in a way, their dominance is overshadowed by the fact that Williams has potentially one of its best teams in a decade. While the Ephs are expecting to send two swimmers to the NCAA National meet later this year, Tufts swimmers are ranked in nearly every race scheduled for this weekend, including the three, four and five slots for the 200-yard relay event, despite competition from the 11 teams present at the meet.
"If I had to pick one word for Williams, it'd be 'stacked,'" Kinsella said. "Williams has some of the fastest swimmers in the entire league, and maybe the country in our division. But I feel pretty confident that we're going to have some great swims. I think we'll have a lot of lifetime bests, and that's really the important thing."
Kinsella, Baker and fellow senior captain Jason Kapit, along with senior Jon Godsey could all potentially have breakout meets and guide the Jumbos over Amherst, considering the more than 20 races the four have combined to win this season. Unlike other sports, it's not abnormal for swimmers to swim their best times at the end of the season, following the ritualistic tapering and shaving which occurs prior to a swimmers' final meet of the season.
"I'm looking for a lifetime best this weekend, swimming the 50-yard freestyle event," Kinsella said. "My best time in that race is 21.18. I want to break 21 seconds."
The Jumbos leave today for the trip to Williams and will return to Medford on Sunday evening.
