By Jack Longo
The Dalhousie Tigers women’s swim team earned their 19th-straight AUS championship title last year and look poised to have another strong season in 2022-2023.
The team, under the leadership of head coach Lance Cansdale dominated the previous campaign, including the end-of-year AUS championship hosted at Dalplex. Leading the way for the Tigers was Reagan Crowell. After an excellent overall season, Crowell earned AUS swimmer of the year and AUS championship swimmer of the meet honours.
Crowell won three individual events, plus three relays at the AUS championship to lead the way for the Tigers. Emilie Schofield had a fantastic season in her first year, winning two individual events to be named the AUS championship rookie of the meet.
After an incredibly strong season overall in AUS, the Tigers went to the U SPORTS championships in Laval. Crowell again led the Tigers, setting a Dalhousie and Swim Nova Scotia record in the 800m freestyle to earned a silver medal with a time of 8:42:20. She also placed 6th in the 400m freestyle.
With no conference championship losses since 2001, and nine successive championships under head coach Lance Cansdale, Dalhousie will rightly be the favourite heading into the season. And with most of last year’s team returning, the Tigers will be well set up to continue their conference championship-winning streak and will look to improve on their U SPORTS Championships performance and earn a top-10 finish.
Just three swimmers won’t be returning to the program with Madeline Shivgulam, Victoria MacDonald and Martine Nyhof graduating. Now, this still-young group has the experience to push for bigger and better things this time around.
The focus from the start is to hit podium at every event and put in the hard work during the regular season to be prepared for the AUS and U SPORTS championships.
The Tigers began their season at the Amby Legere Invitational, hosted by the University of New Brunswick this past weekend. They won 11 events at the two-day event with Crowell swimming to first place in four events, while newcomer Kate Tuck won three.
The Tigers schedule also includes the Jack Scholz Invitational at Acadia University on October 29th and 30th, the DAL-ACA Dual Meet @ Dalplex on January 14th, and the AUS championships at Memorial University from February 10-12.
Additionally, Dalhousie will host their annual Kemp-Fry Invitational at Dalplex from November 25-27.