BY Tufts Daily

In a season that featured a plethora of extraordinary individual accomplishments, the women's swimming and diving team enjoyed a slew of team successes during its 2007-08 campaign. Among them was a fifth-place finish at the NESCAC Championships in February and a strong showing at the NCAA Championships, in which three members of the team - senior Kendall Swett, sophomore Lindsay Gardel and freshman Megan Kono - all made appearances.

There were plenty of record-breaking performances scattered throughout the season, especially coming from the underclassmen and celebrated diver Swett.

The Akron, Ohio native's greatest accomplishment in her prolific collegiate career came at the NCAA Championships over spring break, where she broke her own national record in the 3-meter dive (509.3) en route to her second career national championship in that dive. Swett capped off the meet with a victory in the 1-meter dive, giving her a sweep of both national titles.

Swett also broke her own 3-meter record and set pool, meet and NESCAC records at the NESCAC Championships, where she amassed 536.85 points.

Though she transferred to Tufts in her junior year, two years was more than enough for Swett to leave a lasting legacy. Her diving coach Brad Snodgrass found her transition to Tufts to be perhaps her greatest achievement of all.

"I really need to emphasize that [Swett] came to Tufts for all the right reasons - academic reasons," he said. "It took a lot of bravery to transfer and to do it successfully, and my hat's off to her for taking that step and making it all work out."

On the swimming side, the intensely talented duo of freshmen Kono and Maureen O'Neill ripped through the water to assert themselves as two of the stronger swimmers on the roster in only their first year of collegiate competition.

While Kono mainly dominated the long-distance freestyles, O'Neill specialized in shorter distances. O'Neill managed to break her own school record in the 50-yard freestyle three times, recording her best time - 24.29 seconds - at NESCACs.

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