On Saturday, November 19, the men’s and women’s swimming team traveled to Vermont to face Middlebury College and Tufts University. The men swept the competition with a score of 181-107 over the Panthers and defeated the Jumbos for the first time in Conn’s history with a score of 150-130. The Camel women lost to Tufts by only three points and were defeated by Middlebury 172-125. “This win marks a very important stepping stone toward eventually getting to the top of NESCAC’s and being a powerful team on the national level… it looks as though our preseason training has paid off,” said Tim Walsh ’12.
Hillary Scott ’12 commented, “The meet against Midd and Tufts was an amazing way to start the season. Everyone performed so well, and we completely exceeded our expectations. With the win on the boys’ team and close score on the girls’, I think that it will give us momentum going forward into this season. Everyone is really excited and motivated to keep working hard.”
Standout performances included Sam Gill ’14 and his victories in the 50 and 100-yard freestyles (which he swam in 21.79 and 48.03 seconds respectively) and All-American Walsh and his wins in the 100 and 200 yard backstrokes (times of 52.52 and 1:56.21 respectively). On the women’s side, All-American Julia Peilock ’14 won both the 50 and 100 yard freestyle races in 25.19 and 55.26 seconds and freshman Esther Mehesz ’15 kicked off her college career with victories in the 500 and 1000 yard freestyle events, which she finished with times of 5:14.17 and 10:43.81.
In terms of how this season is looking for the Camels, Peilock asserts, “We have a long season ahead of us and our goal is being on top by mid-February for NESCACs. What we do up until then as far as competitions go, doesn’t matter that much. We have a lot of training to do to prepare for February.”
Still, the swimmers are facing dramatic changes in their roster from last season. “We lost some extremely talented seniors last year, but they have now been replaced with an amazing freshman class. It’s always hard when you lose talented swimmers like Sarah Murphy ’11, who was third in the nation in the 200 fly, but there is now an opportunity for others on the team to fill that spot in other events,” Peilock said of this challenge.
Scott states, “Something that we work on from season to season is competing as a team. Swimming can seem like an individual sport, but we put a lot of emphasis on the team aspect. Everyone is really involved in each other’s swims and are always cheering if someone from Conn is in the water. We have a really young team – a ton of freshmen, so instilling in them this sense of team camaraderie is really important to us.”
The Camels competed at home against the neighboring Coast Guard Academy this past Saturday and will race on December 10 at Williams College before having a month long hiatus from competitions (as many winter sports often do because of final exams and the holidays). Their next competition is not until January 10 – at Grinnell College. “We get back to school on the 27 and we’ll train here until the 29 and then we’ll fly to Naples, Florida and train there until January 13,” said Brian Gilman ’14. “Everyone looks forward to this trip because it’s fun team bonding but it is also an important part of our training in preparation for NESCACs.”
When asked what the team’s major goals and ambitions are for the upcoming season, Scott exclaimed, “Every year we simply want to do better than last year. For the women’s team, last year at NESCACs we got the highest score ever, so this year I think we just want to try to beat that. And of course, get faster times”•
