The team handily defeated Union College 136.5 to 102.5 in front of a home crowd at Pratt Pool in their first meet of the year the Saturday before break. They continued their domination in a 129-75 victory over Trinity.
Morgan Bayer '03, who last year won the national championship in the 200-yard butterfly, started this year where she left off for the Jeffs, with wins in both meets.
Bayer took first place in the 100-yard butterfly and 200-yard freestyle in the Union meet and against Trinity she won the 200-yard freestyle, 200-yard butterfly and 500-yard freestyle.
Captain Hillary Jones '01 took third place in the 100-yard freestyle at last year's national championships. Jones was dominant against Trinity, winning the 50-yard freestyle, and the 100-yard freestyle races.
In regard to her own goals, Jones believes that she can duplicate if not improve upon her performance last year in the National Championships. "I definitely think I can swim faster," she said.
The Trinity meet started off with suspense when the Amherst swimmers in the first event touched out to defeat Trinity. The women won the 200-yard medley relay in 1:56.26, winning by a margin of 2.43 seconds.
But the team's victories against Union and Trinity may not be indicative of how the team will fare against Middlebury College and Williams College, who will provide stiff competition.
The women lost only one event against the Trinity squad and two out of 13 events against the Union swimmers. The final relays of the Trinity meet were raced as exhibitions, so the final score was closer than the action in the pool.
"I think we're going to do really well this year because we have a big and fast freshman class," said Alison Martin '02. "I think we'll do better than last year's. I think we'll place higher this year at Nationals and give Williams a run [at the NESCAC]."
Jones also believes that this year's team will prove successful given their preparation to date.
"I'm very excited. The enthusiasm of the freshman class is wonderful. A lot of them haven't trained at the level we have now, lifting weights and other things, and I think they'll be improving," Jones said.
This year Jones particularly cites the performance of Amherst freshmen Ali Abate, and Jamie Fisher.
Abate hit the wall first for victories in the 50-yard freestyle and 100-yard backstroke in her debut against Union and came in first in the 200-yard IM, and 200-yard backstroke against Union.
Fisher swam the freestyle leg of the winning Amherst 200-yard medley relay against Union, and swam the freestyle leg of the winning 400-yard medley relay against Trinity.
Amherst will visit rival Middlebury College in one of their toughest meets of the year on Saturday at 1:00 p.m. The Panthers have always brought strong competition into their meetings with Amherst, and Saturday will prove no exception.