By Ari Strait
The Northeastern women’s swimming and diving team retained the title of America East champions this past weekend, bringing home a fourth straight conference championship from the three day tournament in Orono, Maine.
The Huskies, who dropped three of the last four meets leading up to the championships, defeated runners-up New Hampshire Wildcats by just under 50 points, while their 821.5 point total put them 300 points ahead of third place finisher Binghamton University.
“I can tell you this is the most consistently hard working group I’ve had,” said NU coach Roy Coates. “I think the biggest difference between us and UNH was that we had 24 people who were talented and worked very hard. We definitely won this as a team. Of the 24 people who went, all scored points. You’re only as good as your weakest link, and our weakest link is by far stronger than any other team’s in this conference.”
Depth did indeed play a critical factor. Except for diving and the relays, the seven-team competition had each of the top 16 finishers score points, meaning that finishing first was not nearly as important as filling out the rest of the standings. For example, a team that had the second place finisher and the thirteenth place finisher scored more points that the team that had the first place swimmer.
Out of these 20 events, Northeastern took first place in only three. However, they placed second seven different times, and on six occasions did they have multiple finishers in the top five.
The Huskies dominated the 100 yard breaststroke, 100-yard butterfly, the 200 yard breaststroke, and the 200-yard freestyle. Those four events provided 211 points, and two new school records. Sister swimmers Katie and Kristen Kane set new records with a 1:05.78 100-yard breaststroke and a 2:20.88 200-yard breaststroke, respectively. That was in addition to freshman Sarah Reddick’s three record breaking times in the 200 IM, 100 butterfly, and 100 freestyle.
Although the Wildcats did present quite a challenge, according to junior Emily White, the Huskies’s focus never strayed from their goal.
“I don’t think we were nervous, cause our depth was amazing. We were pretty confident that we could win. There isn’t a bad swimmer on our team. Every race, we were trying to beat the person next to us,” she said.
Coach Coates agreed.
“We knew exactly the difference between these two teams. The have four or five very strong swimmers, so we had to, one through 24, score consistently high in all our events. That would get more points than a bunch of first place finishes,” he said.
White was especially complimentary of the complete team contribution
“I’m so proud of everyone. This meet was won by a total team effort. Everyone contributed. Everyone scored points. It was an entire team win, which is something I’ve never been a part of,” she said.
