The women's swimming and diving team will feature a healthy mix of talented underclassmen and seasoned upperclassmen that will look to continue the program's well-established winning tradition.
Seniors Monika Burns, Renee Nicholas and Claire Pigula take over the reigns as tri-captains from the co-captains Jess Bollinger and Chloe Young-Hyman, both of whom represented Tufts at Nationals last season before graduating. While they'll have large shoes to fill, coach Nancy Bigelow believes that the two will do so admirably.
"The captains are doing a great job of bringing the group together," Bigelow said. "Especially with a group our size, it's important to have team cohesiveness ... Their leadership is going to be key because we have a lot of underclassmen."
Those underclassmen, however, will have plenty of strong leadership from the older members of the team. Pigula, for one, has taken an interest in the team's youth movement.
"I'm really excited to see how our freshmen are going to do," Pigula said. "The freshmen who are swimming for the first time in college are getting used to everything. It's great to see the great time drop in their races as the season goes along."
Some of the freshmen to watch for are Megan Kono, who will contribute to distance swimming, Maureen O'Neill, who specializes in sprints, and Abby Fuller.
This influx of younger swimmers will especially bolster the freestyle events, arguably the team's deepest area. What the Jumbo sprinting corps lack in depth, they will make up for in skill, and the quality of the sprinters may ultimately be one of the team's strengths.
But diving is where the Jumbos really get a chance to flex their muscles. Returning for senior year is All-American Kendall Swett, who transferred to Tufts before the 2006-07 school year and shattered every program diving record. She also broke the NESCAC record for the 1-meter dive and placed fourth at Nationals in the 3-meter event last year.
Swett looks to build on her success from last season, hoping to thrive without the pressure of being a highly-touted transfer.
"Last year I set a lot of goals for myself academically and athletically," Swett said. "It's a lot to take on for one year, and at the end of the year, I was happy with how I did, but I wanted to do everything - and of course I couldn't do everything.
"I achieved my goal, which was to break my national record, but I think this year the pressure is a lot less," she continued. "I have the ability to enjoy it better now that I'm more comfortable, and that's going to make the season a lot better."
The team will need to get whatever they can get from all their swimmers, especially in a conference as competitive as the NESCAC.
"The NESCAC is the most competitive [Div. III conference] in the country," Bigelow said. "It's a very strong conference year in and year out, and if we finish in the middle of the pack, it would be a very good season for us. It will be hard for us to break into the top three because of the personnel the other teams have."
That "top three" generally consists of Williams, Amherst and Middlebury, three programs that perennially boast some of the deepest squads in the conference. Other schools that tend to cause the Jumbos some trouble in the water are Conn. College and Colby.
"The meets against Conn. College and Colby are always exciting for us because we don't know how they'll turn out," Pigula said. "It could go either way."
"Conn. College is one of our fiercest rivals and we always get excited about facing them every season," junior Elizabeth Frenette said.
As for now, the Jumbos look ahead to their first meet against Trinity this Saturday. Compared to other seasons, there's a different sense of excitement surrounding this team.
"There's a new kind of feel to the team, and everyone's really excited about swimming fast this year, which is a big goal for us," Frenette said. "I think the team's cohesiveness and attitude and the way people feel about swimming this year makes it different from every other season. Everyone's just really involved this year."
