Kendall Swett, Women's Swimming and Diving
Breaking every diving record at Tufts this season was not enough for junior diver Kendall Swett. Swett, who won the Div. III national championship in the three-meter dive last March for Lake Forest College in Ill., transferred to Tufts at the beginning of the year. and began shattering every record in the book. This weekend Swett won both the one-meter and three-meter diving titles at the NESCAC Championships in Williamstown.
On Friday Swett took the one-meter diving event with a score of 475.20 and set both NESCAC and conference championship records in the process. Her score was almost 30 points higher than the second-place finisher, Bates' sophomore Kelsey Lamdin. Not only did Lamdin win the title last year, but she set the record of 423.25, which Swett obliterated this weekend.
On Sunday Swett was back at it, winning the three-meter title with score of 482.25. That point total was a whopping 40 points higher than second-place finisher junior Alanna Hanson of Middlebury College. Swett just barely missed the NESCAC record and the championship meet record by 0.6 points.
Swett's NESCAC titles are the first conference championship titles for the Jumbos since 2004 when Mika Sumiyoshi (LA' 04) won titles in the 200 and 400 individual medleys. Swett will prepare for the NCAA national meet on March 8-10 in Houston, Texas.
Laura Jasinski, Women's Basketball
As the women's basketball team earned its first NESCAC semifinal berth in the program's history, it was senior co-captain Laura Jasinski who led the way for the Jumbos.
In Tufts' 65-50 win over seventh-seeded Middlebury Saturday, Jasinski poured in a game-high 17 points on 70 percent shooting from the floor, her highest single-game total in two years. She also led the Jumbos in rebounds, with nine, and steals, with four, pacing the team on both ends of the floor.
Ten of her 17 points came in the first half, as she staked the Jumbos to an early lead. Jasinski's lay-up with 4:28 left in the first half brought Tufts to its biggest lead of the first frame, at 25-18.
With the Panthers' defense set up in a 2-3 zone, the 6'0" power forward positioned herself at the top of the key. Jasinski responded by shooting the lights out from outside, consistently making elbow jumpers against the Middlebury defenders.
When the Panthers tried to close the gap early in the second half, it was Jasinski who staved off the comeback, scoring five of the Jumbos' seven points during a 7-0 second half run that widened the Tufts lead to 49-38 with just over 10 minutes left. From there, it was smooth sailing to the Jumbos' first postseason win in school history.
