The Tufts University women's swimming & diving team traveled to Boston University for their final event before the New England Small College Athletic Conference (NESCAC) Championships.
MIT joins Tufts as other Division III programs while they are also competing against Division I schools, Boston College Boston University, Brown University, Dartmouth College, Fairfield University, and Iona College. The meet is set up to give teams a final primer before their conference championship meets.
The Jumbos saw great success throughout the weekend, achieving 29 life times best performances. Among those swims were 17 swims that were top-10 swims in the program's history.
The first event, the 500 freestyle of the meet saw a first through fourth sweep by Tufts. Emma Seymour lead the way (5:08.15), followed by Allison Brea (5:10.29), Liz Sutton (5:10.84), and Hannah Truslow (5:14.66).
Tory Atkinson started the run of top-10 swims as her 200 IM time of 2:10.78 was good for 8th best in school history. Rounding out the Jumbos in the event were Emily Mendelson (2:12.21), Bella Preneta (2:13.54), and Steph Pon (2:20.21).
The sprint trio of Hannah Spencer (23.94), Katelin Ulmer (24.03), and Hannah Lesser (24.15) all broke into the top 5-in program history in the 50 freestyle, they now sit #2, #3, and #5 respectively. Emily Payne (24.53), Hannah Truslow (25.25), and Sam Nasson (27.32) all had lifetime best times in the event. Katherine Sweetser (25.80) swam the event butterfly and finished with a time good for 4th all time in program history.
That would be Sweetser's first of five swims that would be in the top 10. Her other swims were the 100 butterfly (57.26- 4th all time), 200 butterfly (2:08.20- 6th all time), 100 freestyle (52.97- 8th all time), and 50 butterfly relay split (25.64- 8th all time).
Sweetser would not be the only swimmer to break into the top-10 multiple times. Hannah Lesser would add three more top 10 times, bringing up meet total to 4- 100 butterfly (57.82- #9 all time), 100 freestyle (52.84- 6th all time, and 50 butterfly relay split (25.17- 2nd all time). Junior Emily Mendelson contributed two top times- 400 IM (4:35.91- #10 all time) and 200 breaststroke (2:23.57- 5th all time). Katelin Ulmer added one more top 10 performance by achieving the school's fastest every 50 freestyle relay split at 23.39.
Other top finishes for Tufts included Emily Mendelson and Tory Atkinson (4:39.66) finishing 1st and 2nd in the 400 IM, Allison Brea (17:49.07- 9th all time) and Emma Seymour (1000 split of 10:42.52- 10th all time) finishing 1st and 2nd in the 1650 freestyle, Hannah Truslow (2:09.48) and Tory Atkinson (2:09.94) finishing 2nd and 3rd in the 200 backstroke, and Emily Mendelson, Katelin Ulmer (2:26.99), Liz Sutton (2:28.66), and Tory Atkinson (2:29.46) finishing 1st, 2nd, 4th , and 5th in the 200 breaststroke.
The divers had a strong performance as well as Alaina Kosko, Amber Chong, Sydney Ho, Taissa Gladkova, and Arianna Mehrotra finished 8th, 11th, and 14-16th on the 3 meter board.
The Jumbos return to action on Thursday for the New England Small College Athletic Conference (NESCAC) Championships. The event runs from Thursday through Sunday at Middlebury College. The 800 freestyle relay begins at 7:00pm.
