McCarthy rejuvenating women’s swimming
JMU coach Samantha Smith is building team around freshman-laden team and Delaware native
Posted on January 28, 2008
What a difference a year can make. Last year, JMU swimming was 1-8 in dual meets and finished ninth out of 11 teams in the Colonial Athletic Association championships. This year, the Dukes currently hold a 7-4 record with the newfound promise of success in the seasons to come.
Much of the improvement can be attributed to the funding the swim and dive team received over the past off-season. With the ability to recruit and offer scholarships to its athletes, the program has the ability to compete in the conference and look to a bright future.
This year’s freshman class is the first step toward that turnaround. Morgan McCarthy leads a very talented young class, poised to return JMU to the top of the CAA.
“[McCarthy], along with her fellow classmates, is the beginning of a new era of JMU swimming,” assistant coach Dane Pederson said. “Combined with the leadership we already have, they are providing a great base for us to build off of.”
McCarthy is a backstroke specialist out of New Castle, Del. and has quickly become a crucial member of the Dukes’ resurgence as the centerpiece of the class of 2011.
“It’s really exciting. Our freshman class has brought in a lot of talent, but we really feed off of the upper classmen,” McCarthy said. “They have a lot of talent and also a lot of heart, and they’ve really inspired us to have a real team atmosphere.”
McCarthy was recruited heavily by JMU, while American, Bucknell, Colgate and Delaware also showed strong interest. She accepted a partial scholarship to become a Duke, becoming one of JMU’s first scholarshiped swimmers.
“I chose JMU because it was the best fit,” she said. “I loved Coach [Samantha] Smith and thought she was really motivated, and I just loved how positive the team was.”
From day one McCarthy impressed both her coaches and teammates with her strong work ethic.
“She’s dedicated day in and day out,” senior and captain Grace DeMarrais said. “When we go to meets she’s the first person to get up and set the standard, starting off with a relay and setting the bar high.”
“Her hard work and her day-to-day mentality make her a good athlete,” Pederson said. “You don’t feel great every day in this sport when you come to practice, but she works really hard and she’s really dedicated in everything she does in and out of the water.”
At St. Mark’s High School, McCarthy was an individual state champion her junior year in the 100-yard butterfly and led a state champion team her sophomore, junior and senior years. This year she has recorded season-best times of 2:09.31 in the 200-backstroke, 59.68 in the 100-backstroke and 1:00.26 in the 100-fly. Against Delaware and VMI on Jan. 12, McCarthy recorded individual victories in the latter two, while finishing second in the 200-back. JMU won handily, 182-116 against Delaware and 237-4 over VMI.
Dominating wins like these were hard to come by last year, without such a strong young core.
“I think we’re pretty important to that success just because of the talent. When you bring money in you get talent,” said McCarthy, who has been swimming since age six. “But I also think us working together brings out talent in the whole team, not just the freshmen. A lot of upper class girls are getting faster just because they are racing against faster girls in practice.”
For JMU, the money is crucial to the future success of the program.
“Money doesn’t drive everything, but it definitely helps,” Pederson said. “In the recruiting process, it’s really hard when you don’t have scholarships to offer. This just puts us on an even playing field.”
JMU has wasted no time attracting top-quality swimmers in hopes of returning to the glory of winning three consecutive CAA titles from 1993-95.
“Definitely, I think they’ll win [the CAA] in the next four years,” DeMarrais said. “The freshman group flows really well together. They are such a dynamic group of women, and McCarthy is definitely very vital to the cohesiveness of that group.”
McCarthy is just as positive. Both individually and as a future leader of her team, she feels the Dukes will only get better.
“I really want to be conference champion and I really want to get an NCAA cut [before I graduate,]” McCarthy said. “As a team we want to be conference champions within the next three years. We have a lot of hard work to do, but this team has a lot of heart and the ability to do it.”
Her coaches and teammates share that same optimism, a sentiment that is sure to become commonplace within JMU swimming in the coming years.
“I think she’s going to dominate all four years here. She’s only going to get better, I think she’ll have some records on the board by the time she’s done,” DeMarrais said, referring to the black board of school and conference records hanging on the wall of Savage Natorium.
In the immediate future, McCarthy and the Dukes have the CAA championships in five weeks. For the upperclassmen, conference is a chance to redeem their poor finish from last year. For the freshmen, it’s a chance to show the rest of the CAA what JMU swimming has in store for them until 2011 and beyond.
