By Gia Gu ’26
Sports Editor
Following four days of competition at the New England Women’s and Men’s Athletic Conference Championship, Mount Holyoke Swimming and Diving has completed its 2024-25 season. While the team finished ninth out of 10 teams overall, they walked away from the conference with something more valuable: A season of breakthroughs, resilience and a sense of camaraderie.
Emotions ran high in the 400-yard freestyle relay. It was the final event of the championship, and this race marked the closing chapter of seven seniors’ college swimming careers. The results were the deciding factor that gave the Lyons the extra push needed to beat Clark University by just three and a half points.
“Everyone got super loud and excited, and our relays just did tremendously and everyone swam their hearts out, and we did end up beating Clark. It was fantastic and definitely something I'm going to remember from this season,” Katherine Upton ’28 said in an email to Mount Holyoke News.
“While we didn’t rank high in terms of scoring at NEWMACS, we had the third highest rate of personal bests at this meet,” Kaylee Barnett ’26 added in an email to Mount Holyoke News.
In addition to the progress in the technique of their strokes, the mindset of the whole team has grown stronger over the season. “We had to adapt to a lot of challenges early in the season. Changing events, injury and illness [were] difficult at first, but by the end of the season and especially NEWMACs we had totally figured out how to deal with anything that was thrown our way. I’m super proud of our mindset of adaptability all season, and I think keeping that for next year will serve us well,” Upton said.
With the guidance of a mental performance coach, the team refined strategies to enhance mental resilience. “The team has an excellent mental performance coach, and we worked alongside her this season to maintain healthy strategies for pre-meet anxiety, meditation and visualization,” Molly Malloy ’26 said in an email to Mount Holyoke News.
The sense of community and connection with one another is something that sets the Lyons apart from other teams. “We know each other’s goals, and we celebrate one another when those goals are met,” Barnett said. “Something we do every meet is make motivational posters for each other, and post-meet we share why we are proud of the person we made the poster for. Our closeness as a team is something I haven’t experienced on other swim teams, and I think this really sets us apart from others.”
“I think we have the best energy of any team we competed against. We’re the most invested in each other, we feel the highs and lows together, we’re proud of each other no matter how the event went. It’s just a team where everyone wants to be there and everyone supports each other so much and I think it really makes a difference,” Upton remarked.
This spirit of camaraderie is not exclusive to swimming and diving; it radiates throughout the entire athletics department. “I think our athletics department has a sort of multi-team camaraderie that you wouldn’t necessarily find at other schools. Each team is assigned a ‘sister team’ at the beginning of the year, and once a season each team gets together and makes posters for/cheers on their sister team,” Malloy said.
The bonds extend beyond competition. The Lyons help each other with coursework, attend each other’s club events and create a strong network of support. “If someone needs a textbook for Calc-101, someone on the team will loan it to them. If someone's club is hosting an event, the team will show up. If someone is having a movie night — often they invite the team. It's a really beautiful way to continue forging connections outside of the pool,” Malloy added.
Looking ahead, the team will focus on self-improvement and steady progress rather than rigid goals. “My personal goal is to live in the present more, and enjoy the little things that I enjoy about my sport more. I would love to have more team bonding events in the future,” Zoey Zhu ’27 said in an email to Mount Holyoke News.
“Both my goal and our team goal is always to do better than we did the previous season. For me, that looks like being more committed to working out during the off-season, and working more heavily on my technique,” Barnett said.
With the resilience they have formed and the deep connections they have built, the team is poised to return stronger, faster and closer than ever in the seasons ahead.
Alayna Khan '27 contributed fact-checking.
