The women's swimming team dropped its third straight meet in a 172.5'minus;125.5 loss to MIT at the Hamilton Pool, spoiling strong performances from sophomore swimmer Katie Russell and senior diver Lindsey Gardel on Seniors' Day.
On the annual event day, held to honor the Jumbos' six fourth'minus;years, it was the second'minus;year Russell who emerged dominant in the distance events. Russell won the 1000'minus;yard freestyle event by five seconds with a time of 10:58.99. She followed it up with an impressive performance in the 500'minus;yard freestyle event, in which she beat out her nearest competitor -Tufts junior Megan Kono - by nearly three seconds.
'Its great having the juniors back,' senior tri'minus;captain Joanna Drianne said, referring to third'minus;years like Kono who were abroad for the fall semester. 'They add a great leadership dynamic to the team, and they have been performing well considering that they just came back.'
On the diving boards, Gardel was equally impressive, capturing both the 1'minus; and 3'minus;meter events with respective scores of 253.04 and 279.30 and helping Tufts notch crucial points toward the overall standings. The senior's final score in the 1'minus;meter event bested MIT's Elise Stave's by almost 13 points, while Gardel won the 3'minus;meter by nearly 18 points.
The Jumbos also benefited from strong performances in the sprint and middle'minus;distance swimming events. In the 200'minus;yard breaststroke, two Jumbos were neck'minus;and'minus;neck for the length of the race, with freshman Lauren Quan ultimately out'minus;touching her teammate, sophomore Paulina Ziolek, by four hundredths of a second.
In the backstroke events, sophomore Kelly Moriarty finished second in the 100'minus;yard race, six hundredths of a second behind MIT first'minus;year Kathryn Greskoff. The Jumbos also had a strong performance in the sprint events with sophomore Saheela Mehrotra placing second in the 50'minus;yard event and junior Maureen O'Neill finishing in third place.
Sophomore Valerie Eacret finished in second place in the 100'minus;meter butterfly, a half'minus;second behind MIT junior Amy Jacobi, while classmate Courtney Adams finished in the runner'minus;up slot in the 200'minus;yard freestyle.
The Jumbos, who last year went 8'minus;1 in dual meets, dropped to 2'minus;5 this season with the loss versus the Engineers. But far more important for Tufts than the win'minus;loss record will be the team's performance at February's NESCAC Championships. Separating the Jumbos and that meet, though, will be Saturday's home meet with Bates and Wheaton, the final match at Hamilton Pool of the year.
'Next weekend will be another opportunity for us to show what we are made of, and I think it should be a great meet for everyone,' Drianne said. 'It will be another great opportunity to compete and have some great swims.'
The experience of racing against MIT, though, should prove invaluable down the stretch.
'MIT has a great program, [and] we were just coming off our training trip,' Drinane said. 'The focus for our season is performing well at NESCACs but we ... embraced the opportunity to swim against MIT, and would have liked to beat them, but it didn't work out in our favor.'
