The women's swimming team spent much of its winter break in Pompano Beach, Fla., but wading in the ocean and sunbathing on the shore were not on the agenda. Instead, the Jumbos were busy with conditioning exercises to improve their times for the spring-semester portion of their season.
The team's hard work over break proved worthwhile, earning them a split in the Jan. 15 meet at Williams. Tufts defeated Wesleyan 157-142, but fell to the Ephs — widely considered the best team in the conference — 195.5-99.5.
"Just about every team in the NESCAC has a conditioning trip like this over break," senior tri-captain Megan Kono said. "It's really important in helping us get ready for our spring meets, but it's also really tiring, and we were pretty exhausted heading into the meet against Wesleyan and Williams."
The Jumbos were pleased with their results, particularly against a team they were set on defeating.
"There was a lot of emphasis this season on beating Wesleyan," said Kono, who placed in the top three in four events in the meet. "They are really similar to us in terms of talent, and we weren't able to beat them last year, so this was a big win for us."
Tufts also benefited from a stellar effort by freshman Jenny Hu, who had a pair of third-place finishes in the 200-yard breaststroke and was a part of the 200-yard medley relay team.
Fellow freshman Sami Bloom added a couple of third-place marks off the diving board, posting scores of 228.60 and 228.95 in the 1-meter and 3-meter events, respectively.
If the win over Wesleyan didn't serve as evidence of Tufts' improvement, its performance against MIT on Saturday certainly should have.
Early in the season, with just a few weeks of full practices under their belts, the Tufts swimmers managed only a fifth-place finish out of seven teams at the MIT Invitational on Dec. 3-4, trailing the hosts by over 600 points in the 42-event competition. On Saturday, however, the Jumbos showed the progress they've made this season, forcing MIT to battle through the very last relay.
Though the Jumbos ultimately lost to the Engineers 156-144, they were not disappointed with the result.
"I was very pleased with how we swam, and I know that [Coach Nancy Bigelow] was as well," Kono said. "MIT is undefeated this season, and they've faced a lot of great schools, so we knew this was going to be a really tough meet. But everyone's been working hard, and even though we were still tired coming off the trip and the meet on the 15th, I thought everyone did really well."
Kono's performance in the 1650-yard freestyle was the highlight of the day for Tufts, as she won the event in 17:59.20, nearly 30 seconds ahead of the second-place finisher, MIT freshman Alexandra Hall.
Freshman Mia Greenwald earned a tie for first in the 50-yard freestyle sprint race, touching simultaneously with Engineers sophomore Nicole Wang in 25.96 seconds. And Bloom again excelled off the diving board, winning the 1-meter event with a score of 284.90.
Tufts will now have a week off to prepare for its final home meet of the season, a dual event against Wheaton on Saturday, Jan. 29 at noon. This will be the last race in Hamilton Pool for the team's seniors, and going out with a win would be especially meaningful for them.
"It's really bittersweet for all of us, and it's really important to come out and perform well in our last meet here at Tufts," Kono said.
After Wheaton, the team will split up into two squads, one of which will spend most of its time preparing for the Wheaton Invitational on Feb. 4-5, while the other gets ready for NESCAC Championships, which will take place at Williams on Feb. 18-20.
"We're all really excited about how much we've improved," Kono said. "I think everyone is really positive about what we can accomplish in the next couple of meets."
