Samantha Paul
@samantha_alexx
After concluding the regular season with a dual meet against Babson College, Springfield College’s men’s and women’s swimming and diving teams are preparing to compete in the NEWMAC Championships this coming weekend.
For Springfield, last season’s championship weekend included record-breaking performances in the women’s 200 medley and 200 freestyle relays. This year, in his 35th season as the head coach for Springfield swim and dive, John Taffe is looking for continued success in these events, but also to see his athletes improve holistically and grow in confidence.
“‘Expectations’ is not a word that I ever use, only because that tends to put a different cloud over people individually. It’s more about our processes, whether it’s from one year to the next, I’m trying to get folks to realize what their potential is,” Taffe said.
Springfield men’s swimming and diving finished with a 6-6 record in the regular season, while the women’s team is 9-6 heading into the championships. The MIT swimming and diving program is expected to pose substantial competition, as their men’s and women’s teams are nationally ranked in Division III at No.10 and No.5 respectively. The Engineers women’s team has also won the conference 12 years in a row, and the men have won 14 consecutive.
While an improved team finish this year would be an additional accomplishment–the men’s and women’s teams finished fifth and third in the NEWMAC last season, respectively–Taffe and his athletes are more focused on their timed performances improving this weekend than their overall finish in the tournament.
“We can place high as a team, but if we didn’t really perform to our capabilities then were we really successful?” Taffe challenged. “I think if you asked most swimmers anyway, they’d prefer the best time of their life [over first place].”
Heading into the weekend, Springfield’s strengths still lie in their relay teams. On the women’s side, the 200 and 400 freestyle relays are two events that propelled the Pride to the national stage last season and are expected to again, with returning upperclassmen Carolyn Blenk, Nina Lamb, Natalie Chamberlain and Erin Kelaher.
The women’s 200 and 400 medley relays will also be exciting to watch, and Coach Taffe hopes to see the medley athletes peak together to produce a great result against other strong NEWMAC competitors.
“There’s four people on a relay and getting them all to perform well at the same time is the challenge,” Taffe said.
As for athletes to look out for in the individual women’s races, junior Kay Shen and senior Emma Baumhauer have been key individual contributors for the Pride this season in the sprint events.
The men’s team is overall a younger group than the women’s team, with several seniors dealing with injuries throughout the season. However, Coach Taffe identified sophomores Dan Backlund and Rocky Tang, as well as juniors Jonathan Chan, Jordon McMillan, Ryan Goolsbey and Luke Zonghetti as athletes to watch this weekend. Taffe also hopes this group could potentially go on to more postseason meets.
Competition will begin the evening of Thursday, Feb. 22, with trials and finals in several events to follow through the weekend. The NEWMAC Swimming and Diving Championship will conclude on February 25.
Photo courtesy of Springfield College Athletics