For the second year in a row, Emory University hosted the University Athletic Association (UAA) Swimming and Diving Championships. The Emory men and women's teams emerged as the overall champions, with eight schools gathering at the Woodruff Physical Education Center (WoodPEC) from Feb. 8-11.
Men secure 21 All-UAA honors, nine individual championships
On the first day of the meet, the men’s team came in first with 96 points, with Washington University in St. Louis (WashU) trailing by two in the 800-yard freestyle relay. Senior Pat Pema, sophomore Crow Thorsen, senior Jeffrey de Groot and junior Nicholas Goudie came in second in the 800-yard freestyle relay with a time of 6:43.56.
The men’s team faced tough competition from WashU, the University of Chicago (UChicago) and Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) (Pa.). Strong individual performances and event victories, including Goudie’s 50-yard freestyle win and Senior Ryan Soh’s conference title victory in the 100-yard backstroke, helped the men’s team remain close to UChicago in the overall standings.
Although Emory trailed UChicago by four points heading into the last day of the meet, the Eagles were determined to retain the conference crown. Strong performances in the 200-yard breaststroke by graduate student Jason Hamilton and graduate student Justin Lum gave the Eagles a chance to match UChicago’s lead.
The Emory men pulled ahead thanks to key wins, which included Goudie breaking the 100-yard freestyle UAA record at 45.0 and a silver-medal finish by freshman Will Kohn in the 200-yard backstroke.
The men’s team won the contest with a score of 1748, receiving 21 All-UAA honors and nine individual event championships. Despite being almost upset by No. 3 UChicago, head coach Jon Howell saw the meet as a learning opportunity.
“It's good for our men to be tested a bit to have a close contact with contests with Chicago and have a rally,” Howell said. “It makes them a better overall team in the end … and we always learn from those experiences.”
Senior Lucas Bumgarner also brought home the title for the men’s 1-meter and 3-meter dives for the third year in a row, shattering his and Emory’s previous record of 581.80. He was crowned the UAA Men’s Diver of the Year.
For Bumgarner, pressure from the UAA championship can either make or break fellow divers. Unlike other divers, Bumgarner said he came into the UAA championship wanting to give the audience a good show.
“UAAs is a really exciting time because a lot of alums come back, parents are in town and other family members, and you can turn that into a positive or negative experience and use it to your advantage,” Bumgarner said. “[It] adds a bunch of pressure to yourself and ends up feeling like the weight of the world is on your shoulders. So, I really just tried to make it a positive experience and try to give the people that came a good show.”
Bumgarner blew past his competition, tallying 611.65 in the 1-meter dive to earn his sixth UAA title. Later, he added one more conference title by garnering 593.55 points in the 3-meter dive. He credited his competitive consistency to going “back to the basics.”
“A lot of times you are trying to build up new dives in trying to get these new dives,” Bumgarner said. “So, going back to basics and building back from square one…and strengthening that foundation really help[s] with some of those harder dives.”
Women bring home 22 All-UAA honors, 11 conference titles
After the first day of competition, the women’s team trailed No. 10 New York University (NYU) and No. 5 UChicago by eight points after a top-three finish by junior Penelope Helm, sophomore Jada Chatoor, freshman Meredith Liu and senior Nina Turcanu in the 800-yard freestyle relay.
However, the women’s team ended the second day ahead of NYU and UChicago. Graduate student Taylor Leone won the 50-yard freestyle with a time of 23.02 seconds, and the momentum carried on to the relay event where Leone, senior Sammie Kass, freshman Claire DePiero and senior Caroline Maki won the 200-yard freestyle relay (1:31.91). Leone, Maki, junior Megan Jungers and senior Anna Glowniak broke the 400-yard medley UAA record with a time of 3:40.26.
The Eagles established a stronger lead on the third day, pulling ahead of UChicago with more event titles from Glowniak and Jungers. Maki broke the UAA record in the 100-yard freestyle not once, but twice, in both the prelims and final with times of 49.93 and 49.72, respectively.
Maki was named Women’s Swimmer of the Year after her decisive championship title. Yet, for Maki, winning titles and becoming UAA Women’s Swimmer of the Year were not as important as enjoying the meet with her teammates.
“My biggest goal was to get out and have as much fun as I could because I knew I'd never broken 50 before, and I knew there was a 49 in me,” Maki said. “Going into finals… the same goal was to just go out and have the most fun out of the whole field and do it with my teammates.”
The women’s team went on to win the team title, receiving 22 All-UAA honors and 11 conference titles.
Emory’s coaching staff also won the UAA’s Women’s Coaching Staff of the Year award. Howell said that his success as a coach can be attributed to creating a better environment for the team.
“We've done a lot of work with mental health and sports psych this year,” Howell said. “We've done a lot of work with nutrition. All those things, again, set us up along with training and a great team environment to be successful in the end.”
Swimmers also had the opportunity to qualify for the NCAA Division III National Championship, which will be held in Greensboro, N.C. starting March 15. Soh, who won the 200-yard medley relay in the 2022 National Championship, said the Championship is a “main focus” for him and his teammates coming off the UAA Championship.
Howell agreed with Soh and said his swimmers are looking forward to the upcoming meets.
“Everything we do throughout the course of the year is geared towards championship season,” Howell said. “For us, our main focus is on the national championships for quite a few of our swimmers. [The UAAs] are not their primary meet, but it's a good dry run for nationals.”
