TOWSON, Md. ? It's always a good thing to listen to your mother and for Tiger sophomore Meredith Budner, taking her advice has definitely helped her. Otherwise, she would not have become a swimmer and would not be preparing to become the second female swimmer in Towson history to compete at the NCAA Championships.
While the Rockville, Md. native got a late start to her swimming career at the age of 12, it was a race against her mom that got it all started.
“One day, I was swimming against my mom at a neighborhood pool and I beat her,” Meredith recalls. “She told me I should join a swim team and I did. I tried it out and loved it and here I am now.”
As Meredith started to look at potential colleges, it was also her mother, Lynn, who suggested she visit Towson and Coach Pat Mead.
“Originally, I didn't want to go here because I had some friends who went here and they transferred, but my mom forced me to go and look at the school and talk to Pat,” she adds. “I came to the school and looked at the campus and I liked it, especially the dorms because they are so big. I met Pat and I thought he was great. He sounded so knowledgeable. I went on other recruiting trips and didn't think anyone was as good as Pat.”
After looking at several other schools, including Colonial Athletic Association rivals George Mason and Delaware, Meredith picked Towson and the Tigers are certainly glad she did.
In just two short years, Budner has helped the Tigers win a pair of Colonial Athletic Association team championships while establishing herself as one of the top swimmers in the conference. She has won three events at the CAA Championships in each of the last two years and on Thursday, she will join Jen Irby, '05 as the only Towson female swimmers to reach the NCAA Division I Championships.
But, Meredith is the first swimmer in school history to reach the national meet as a sophomore, which says a lot about her, according to Coach Mead.
“It says a lot about Meredith and her commitment that she has put into getting to the level where she is now,” he says. “It also says a lot about our program in that the events she is competing in are distance events. When we brought in her class, we were very fortunate that we brought in a very strong group of distance swimmers.
“If you look at our team's success over the last two years, it has been partly attributed to the efforts of Meredith, Brooke Golden and Kayla Zeller,” he adds. “Those three have accounted for a great deal of the points and wins during the dual meet seasons. That training group is the one thing that has allowed Meredith to fight daily for her spot. It's not just a matter of wanting to make NCAA's, but it's a matter of wanting to be the fastest swimmer that day.”
Budner will compete in the same three events she has worked so hard to shatter the school and CAA records ? the 500-yard freestyle, the 1650-yard freestyle and the 400-yard individual medley events.
Named as the CAA Rookie of the Year last season after leading the Tigers to their first CAA title, she didn't expect to have that much success so soon. However, as the Tigers prepared to repeat, the expectations grew even higher.
“This year, it was really nerve-racking because I felt so much in terms of expectations, which I placed on myself,” she says. “I didn't want to be the sophomore that got too confident. I was just happy to be able to repeat and drop times.”
Budner met those expectations and earned NCAA ?B' cut times in each of the three events she will compete in this weekend. Because the times were not automatic qualifying marks, she had to wait to see if she qualified for the national championships.
“It was definitely nerve-racking having to wait to find out if I got in,” she recalls. “When I found out, I cried because I was so happy to get in.”
While she is excited to represent Towson at this week's national meet, Budner didn't expect to be going to the NCAA Championships so soon.
“I didn't think I was going to make it this early in my career, but it has always been a goal of mine to reach NCAA's,” she says. “It's amazing because I look at the psych sheets and there are not many other mid-major schools represented. I am glad that I can represent the University and give it a better name. I want to do my best.”
Budner says that she also hopes to make the trip to College Station a learning experience.
She adds, “I want to see how the top swimmers in the nation compete and hopefully, learn something from them. If I can watch them and learn, it can only make me become better.”
As she has prepared for the NCAA Championships during the past two weeks, Budner has had her teammates there to give her support and push her in training.
“Having them there the last two weeks has been so nice,” Meredith says. “They have been so supportive because they have wanted to be there. They have been telling me how proud they are of me and a lot of them will want to race me, which is better than just going against the clock.”
Getting the support of her teammates is something Coach Mead also feels will benefit Budner during the upcoming weekend.
“The fact that they are so close together drives not only Meredith, but the other swimmers as well,” he says. “If you're the fastest person and you're way out there, it's easy on the hard days to just go through the motions. With the group we have here, it's not that way. They are pretty much earning their spots every day in practice and if you are doing that in practice, it's easy to be that successful during championship time.”
Coach Mead knows that Budner will be ready on Thursday when she begins her quest. “When it comes to game day, she is very confident,” he says. “It is something you try to coach, but I think it's more of her being very competitive in meet situations. Those two things are what have allowed her at the end of the season to catapult to the top of the CAA.”
Budner will compete in the 500-yard freestyle on Thursday afternoon before participating in the 400-yard individual medley on Friday. She will complete her event schedule on Saturday with the 1650-yard freestyle.
She is seeded 29th in the 1650-yard freestyle, 45th in the 400-yard individual medley and 51st in the 500-yard freestyle.
