The women's swim team came home from NESCACs thrilled with best times, stellar swims and a strong second-place finish to an incredibly deep Williams College squad. While Williams had the stronger lower half of the roster, Amherst's superstars shined and a record eleven women, ten of whom went, qualified for the NCAA Champions in Houston, TX. And then the Lady Jeffs did the unexpected. The smallish ten-member squad finished in second place behind the Kenyon College Knights, but in front of the defending champion Emory University Owls, in a weekend that saw personal best times fall almost every swim, 16 school records shattered, six NESCAC records erased and three new national records inscribed in the books. Not to mention, Brittany Sasser '08 left Houston as Swimmer of the Meet and Coach Nick Nichols took the Coach of Meet award back to Amherst for the second year in a row. It's been said in the pages of The Student all year. The Amherst Women's Swim Team is superlative in almost every sense of the world.
The women left Massachusetts last Tuesday afternoon and arrived in Houston late that night. The women woke up Wednesday morning to a day filled with fun activities, to say the least. After an easier practice in the morning, the Massachusetts Yankees hit a real Texas rodeo for a cultural experience that co-captain Piper Pettersen '07 said proved to be the most fun she has had at a Nationals cultural outing in her collegiate career. The relaxing day in the West set the tone for a weekend of enthusiasm and camaraderie that carried the Amherst women to an unexpected second-place finish.
The women upgraded their hotel accommodations to the Hyatt from last year's shabby Days Inn, a move that foreshadowed greater success in the pool. Not to say that last year's fourth place finish was shabby in the least. Dressed in brand new warm up suits and purple cowboy hats with purple As on the front to go with an Amherst à la Texas theme, the Amherst women, according to Pettersen, looked like business when they stepped on the deck and swam like business each time they dove in the pool. "Everyone was watching and everyone was jealous," she said.
The Amherst women started the three-day meet Thursday night with an impressive fifth-place finish in the 200 Yard Free Relay with a squad of Mary Marvel '09, Lisa Pritchard '08, Erin Morrison '09 and Pettersen. Meghan Stern '09 carried the momentum to another fifth-place for the Jeffs in the 500 Free, just a touch behind the Kenyon swimmer ahead of her, but with a new school record in her hand.
Amherst did not let up in the 200 Yard IM, where Sasser finished a close second to a National-record swim but with her own NESCAC record and Pettersen squeezed in at eight in another strong swim. Next, Marvel was able to grab sixteenth, the last scoring place, in an incredibly packed 50 Yard Free swim, where the differences in places are just milliseconds. In the 400 Medley Relay, the last event of the night, the Amherst team of Sasser, Pettersen, Marvel and Stern swam a dominant race for second, two seconds ahead of the next-best team from Denison University and good for a new school record. Morrison recalls looking at the scoreboard at the end of the Thursday night session with her teammates, puzzled at their second-place showing. The following days proved that Thursday was no fluke.
Friday opened with another bang as Sasser, Pettersen, co-captain Margaret Ramsey '07 and Meaghan Stern swam to a second-place finish and a new school record in the 200 Medley. In the next event, the 400 IM, Kara MacLaverty '09 earned herself a twelfth-place finish and a school record as a bonus, along with the right to say she is the only swimmer to take a Sasser record off the books. MacLaverty's swim was particularly inspirational because she was not expected to swim as well as she did. After earning a Nationals bid at NESCACs, she would not be satisfied as many would, according to Pettersen, to simply go through the motions at Nationals. Rather, she was determined to give it her all. Her results showed.
Jasmina Cheung-Lau's '07 sixteenth place finish in the event was also phenomenal. Sixteenth places are almost as important as first-place finishes because they earn the team points. If one does not come in sixteenth or above at preliminaries in the morning, no points are earned. Pettersen explained, "We got second place in the meet because we showed up big every morning and put people in the finals." Next Pettersen swam a phenomenal 100 Fly for eighth place. She recalled that it was her lifetime goal to swim a 56 in the event and she did it twice. "It was easy to swim well personally when the team was doing so well because it gave us extra confidence," she said. "I knew I would have a fast swim because we were on fire. The fact that the whole team was swimming so well made it easier." Excellence did not let up in the 200 free, with Stern swimming to third and Ramsey coming in a strong seventh. After the first event with no Amherst swimmers, the 100 Breast, Sasser made her swim in the 100 Back count and pulled through with a new National record.
National records are nothing new to this swimming sensation who set two at last year's meet. But Sasser came back in the next event and helped Amherst do it again, earning the Jeff women a new National record in the 800 Free relay by almost 4 seconds with her teammates Ramsey, Stern and Alex Lee '09. Pettersen said that in her first Nationals Lee "made an incredible difference" and "performed beyond what anyone expected of her and made that record possible." Ramsey commented that she is just as excited about this year's record as she is to see her own record fall next year when she expects an even stronger Amherst team to show up at Nationals, with Stern's little sister Kendra, a phenomenal swimmer in the 200 Free, admitted to Amherst early decision. At the end of Day Two, second still belonged to Amherst.
The Jeffs entered the final night of competition confident, but could not help but feeling a little nervous about Emory's outside threat. Absent an injured Nationals-qualifier in Julie Kim '08, Amherst lacked a swimmer in the 1650. Nevertheless, Sasser overcame another gap in the order with by breaking her own National record she set a few weeks earlier in the 200 Back. MacLaverty also swam an impressive race for fourteenth place, delivering a time that would have gave her the pre-Sasser Amherst record. Stern came in seventh in the 100 Free and Pettersen took fifteenth in the 100 Breast followed by Cheung-Lau in the same place in the 100 Back. To end the stellar weekend, Sasser, Morrison, Pettersen and Stern earned fourth in the 400 Free Relay, besting the time Williams put up to win the event at Nationals last year and taking down their rival's NESCAC record, one final exclamation point on the weekend of unprecedented accomplishments.
Sasser was awarded Swimmer of the Meet on Saturday night, a recognition she credits her team members for helping her earn. "Watching each and every one of my teammates excel this past weekend inspired me to go above and beyond anything I thought I was capable of," Sasser said, adding she is very proud of her award. The NCAA gave Nichols Coach of the Meet for the second year in a row, an award no one doubts he deserves. Pettersen recalled the Johns Hopkins telling Nichols that in his thirty years of coming to the meet, he had never seen any team accomplish quite what Amherst did this past weekend. "You want to do well for Nick," said Pettersen. "Not out of fear for him, but out of respect for him. He does so much for us. The only way to give back to him is by swimming a fast swim for him." While other coaches yell at their teams, Nichols's kind demeanor is enough for the Amherst women.
Pettersen, Ramsey and Sasser all say that their fondest swimming memory is standing up on the platform as Nationals runner-ups on that final Saturday night, a party that sure beat any TAP back at Amherst. For the seniors, Cheung-Lau, Pettersen and Ramsey, it was also what Ramsey called a "emotional but excellent experience," although they missed their fellow four-year swimmer Lisa Rubinger '07 who stayed in Amherst but remained the team's biggest fan, constantly calling and checking the results.
Said Pettersen, "I couldn't have asked for a nicer send off and I couldn't have asked for a better collegiate swimming experience. I mostly have Nick to thank for that, but also the girls on the team, but especially the girls on this year's team and the girls in my class. It felt amazing to stand out there at the end between Jasmina and Margaret at the top, all holding the trophy. It's a feeling I never thought I would know."
Superlative.