Head Coach Nick Nichols explained, "We were clearly the underdogs going in. But across the board, this was the team that swam the best. There was nobody in the pool that swam as well as we did." While the Amherst team has the superstars, it lacks the depth. Williams does not have as many high-powered swimmers, but every member of their team scores and this fact made the difference. Nevertheless, based on team potential, the Jeffs had the meet of program history.
On Friday, the first of three days the women would spend in Williamstown, Mass., the Jeffs got off to a relatively rocky start. They narrowly surrendered the opening 200-yard freestyle relay to a strong Middlebury College squad by less than .2 seconds and did not place a swimmer in the top three of the first two individual events. But Meghan Stern '09 turned that around when she won a close 500-yard freestyle race, with an injured but persevering Julie Kim '08 and Anna Haring '10 following in the top eight. Lisa Pritchard '08 rallied the momentum and snagged the 50-yard backstroke win; Sasser began her weekend dominance, winning the 200-yard IM. The marvelous Mary Marvel '09 took second in the 50-yard freestyle, but Amherst closed the day with a victory in the 400-yard medley relay, with the stellar squad of Sasser, Pettersen, Marvel and Stern.
"It's hard to keep the excitement level up for three days, but this was one of the best meets we've had in terms of enthusiasm," said co-captain Margaret Ramsey '07, describing the incredible display of Amherst spirit throughout the weekend. On Saturday, the women were pumped and so was the men's team as they made the trek from Amherst to Williamstown to cheer on the women towards another day of dominance. It was business as usual as Sasser, Pettersen, Ramsey and Stern snatched the 200-medley relay away from Williams by .1 seconds. Kim took third in the 1,000-yard freestyle and Mac-
Laverty and Jasmina Cheung-Lau '07 took third and fifth, respectively in the 400-yard IM, both with national-qualifying times. Middlebury's talented Marika Ross squeezed by Pettersen for first in the 100-yard butterfly. Meghan Stern dominated the 200-yard freestyle for first place followed by Ramsey in third, while Sasser and Pritchard went one-two in the 100-yard backstroke, both with national cuts. Amherst closed the evening with an incredible victory in the marquee 800-yard freestyle relay, winning by just over six seconds in an amazing display of the team's dominance. Alex Lee '09 did a great job of substituting in for the injured Kim in the relay that won the National Championship last year. With an even better time this year, the squad looks poised to make waves at Nationals again.
Kim opened Sunday night with a third-place 1650-yard freestyle and Sasser followed by claiming her third individual title, this time in the 200-yard backstroke, with teammates MacLaverty, Lee and Pritchard rounding out the top eight. Sasser's race was particularly noteworthy because she broke her own national record unshaved and untapered by 1.09 seconds. We can expect even greater things to come at nationals from this superlative swimmer. After a prelim-inary seed of fifth, Stearn took a close second in the 100-yard freestyle, Pettersen grabbed second in the 200-yard breaststroke and Cheung-Lau swam for second to Middlebury's Ross in the 200-yard butterfly. Although Williams had staked out victory by the final 400-yard freestyle relay, Amherst socked the NESCAC its final punch, winning the relay with a team of Marvel, Sasser, Erin Morrison '09 and Stern to put one final exclamation point on a meet that gives Amherst a lot to be proud of.
Pettersen indicated that she is particularly pleased with the way sophomores Morrison and Tato performed, showing solid improvements after a season of incredibly hard work. "The moment they came back to school [after the summer], you could tell they had been training," she said. Tato earned a personal best time each of the ten times she stepped onto the racing blocks.
The NESCAC also recognized success in Pettersen herself, naming the senior the Four-Year High Point Swimmer for her distinguished college swimming career. And if you think of NESCACs as the Olympics, Sasser matched Mark Spitz's record of seven gold medals as the Amherst swimming took home gold in all seven events she entered, the maximum allowed. She was named Swimmer of the Meet. "No question she deserved it," posited Nichols. An "incredibly hard worker, incredibly disciplined swimmer," Nichols expects "even bigger things from Sasser," indicating that her 200-yard backstroke swim was amazing on any level of swimming. "It was one of the most impressive swims I've ever seen," said Nichols.
"There is no one on this team that regrets where we finished," the proud coach added. But he expects that the Nationals squad will perform even better. Last year, after a third-place NESCAC finish, the women snagged fourth in the nation. With a larger group heading to Texas this year, they expect to duke it out with Kenyon College, Denison College and Emory University and to be the highest-placing NESCAC team. But for now, the Jeffs can remain jubilant about their impressive NESCAC season-the best in school history.