Towson University Athletics

Scoreboard

Women's Swimming and Diving 11.19.2020 John Stark

Tiger Throwback: Pure Dominance

Pure, raw, unencumbered dominance. That's how the Towson University women's swimming and diving team won its first-ever conference championship during the 2007-08 season.

Prior to that season, Towson's finishes at the Colonial Athletic Association (CAA) Swimming & Diving Championships went: sixth, seventh, fourth, second, seventh, third between 2002 and 2007.

The Tigers joined the CAA for the 2001-02 season after a long run in the America East Conference. The opponents were similar: Delaware, Drexel and Hofstra made the move at the same time, but the league trophy the squads were vying for changed.

Considering Towson's finishes in the middle to upper middle of the field, there were likely few in the league who saw that level of dominance coming for the 2008 championship, hosted by George Mason.

When all was said and done on March 1, 2008, trophies, medals and t-shirts issued it was Towson celebrating in the pool, racking an unprecedented 753.5 points along the way. William & Mary finished a distant second that season with just 470 points. The gap from Towson to the Tribe was 283.5 points, which is still the largest margin of victory in league history since 2001-02, and is the third-largest in CAA history.

So how did Towson, so deeply control the meet? The eventual Rookie Swimmer of the Year Meredith Budner put up 60 points alone. It was a deep, young field at the CAA Championships that season as the top five individual point getters were one freshman, Budner, and four sophomores.

But Budner wasn't the only Tiger stick points up on the board. In a full-team effort, Towson fought off other program's individuals with seven swimmers grabbing at least 40 points. Budner was tied for the most points with Swimmer of the Meet and Year, Katie Radloff (William & Mary). Budner wasn't the only Tiger up that high though; sophomore Jordan Crosby posted 57 points, good enough for a third-place finish in the individual points category.

The key to picking up the trophy at the end of the Championship meet isn't to win every race, though that helps, but to land points wherever possible. The Tigers employed that stratagem to perfection. By meet's end, the Towson women missed just two podiums, the 50-yard freestyle, a race that saw an NCAA A cut champion (Hillary Rieveley finished fourth and just off the podium by three-tenths of a second but collected 15 points (third place got 16 points)) and the 200-yard freestyle.

Huge chunks of points were up for grabs in the relays and Towson did not finish lower than second in those events. The Tigers captured titles in the 800-yard freestyle relay with Erica Hall, Rieveley, Robin Glaser and Budner setting a CAA record with an NCAA B Cut to boot. Towson's quad of Emilie Hoeper, Ivelisse Wimberley, Jordan Crosby and Glaser took second in the 400-yard medley relay, edged by three-hundredths of a second by Northeastern, 3 minutes, 47.81 seconds to 3:47.84.

Gobbling up points, Towson had multiple podium finishes in the 500-yard free, with Budner going for a B Cut in 4:49.15 and Brooke Golden touching in 4:54.07. In the 400-yard IM, Budner again took first in 4:24.20 with 1, Kayla Zeller in third at 4:28.51.

All told, Towson won eight total events, including another NCAA B Cut from Budner in the 1,650-yard freestyle, which also set a CAA record in 16:27.27.

That one weekend in Fairfax, Virginia set the table for years of dominance to come for the Towson University women's swimming and diving program. The 2008 Championship was the first of four-straight titles for Towson and the first of seven in an eight-year span, and that one season saw Towson finish second.

No program has so thoroughly controlled the top spot in the league as the Tigers did from 2008-2015.

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