This weekend, the Spartans participated in the annual UAA Conference Championships for swimming. However, this year there was a bit of a twist in the set up. The conference meet was supposed to be hosted by Emory University in Atlanta this year and the teams were to meet up there on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. However, this year bad weather prevented three teams from making it to Atlanta: Rochester, University of Chicago and Case Western Reserve University.

So, instead, those three teams competed at our very own Veale Natatorium. It was similar to this year’s earlier virtual meet, in which times were taken and submitted to determine the points and winners. The other teams—Emory University, Brandeis, New York University, Carnegie Mellon University and Washington University—competed in Atlanta. The final results had the women placed seventh and the men fifth.

When asked about the conference meet, coach Doug Milliken said “I thought it went really, really well…I was really happy with how we performed”. Because this was a taper meet, the swimmers were rested and ready to go. This led to a lot of season bests and even lifetime bests.

This meet marks, for the most part, the end of the season. There are two meets remaining—the Midwest Invitational and the NCAA championships. The Midwest Invitational will be the taper meet for swimmers that were not on the conference roster and the NCAAs for those who made qualifying times. This means that the vast majority of swimmers are done with practices at the moment and that, after next weekend, only a handful will still be in the pool.

At this point in time, most people are taking a well-deserved break, but they will begin to filter back in after spring break to work out on their own. It’s up to the swimmers to stay in shape for the rest of the semester and over summer. In fact, that is where a lot of significant growth comes from, according to Milliken: “What really determines how well a swimmer will improve in the next season is if they come back from the summer in shape and ready to go.”