UMW swimmers earn CAC recognition

By MACKENZIE HARD
Staff Writer

This week senior Jeffrey Leckrone and junior Carly Vaughn were named CAC Swimmers of the Week. Both Leckrone and Vaughn have won this title before through winning events at various meets. 

Leckrone won several races in the meet against Gettysburg College on Saturday, Jan. 26. He placed first in both the 100 yard and 200 yard breaststroke, third in the 100 yard butterfly, and was part of the winning 400 yard medley relay. 

“Getting this award could encourage you to perform better, but for us there is more when it comes to the conference championships. Our team is so dominant that is not about the team win anymore, it’s more about individual wins. Team wins are great, as both teams have won for the last twenty years or so, but getting individual wins can qualify you for nationals,” said Leckrone. 

Vaughn won three individual races and a relay at the same meet, defeating Gettysburg. She placed first in the 100 yard backstroke, while also placing first in the 100 yard and 200 yard butterfly. This is the third time that Vaughn has received this award. 

“I didn’t know that I had won until our coach told me during our meeting. I also received an email from Dean Richardson congratulating me,” said Vaughn. 

Both Leckrone and Vaughn had a similar introduction to the sport through their parents encouraging them to swim on their school teams. 

“I started because my older sister was swimming on a local summer league team and then I started swimming on it. She got mad when people beat her times the following summer so my mom told her that if she swam all year round, then she would do better. Since I was also swimming, my mom thought that I might as well swim too. I really like swimming because when you’re swimming it gives you a chance to clear your head and just swim. I am also really competitive,” said Vaughn. 

Leckrone said, “For me, I started swimming at about the age of three or four because my parents made to take swim lessons, but then after a few years of pretty competitive swimming I got tired of it and so when I was twelve, I just did summer league swim two months out of the year until I was a senior in high school.

At that point, I had lost pretty much everything that made me good at swimming. I had had a competitive swimming background and I had a few friends convince me to swim again senior year just to wrap it all up. I thought that was going to be it, but my competitiveness got the better of me. I didn’t want to be the slowest person on my relies so I started to go to club practices. After a few months of swimming in high school, I talked to the coach here at UMW at the time, Abby, and asked if I could be on the team.” 

CAC Championships start Feb. 14 in St. Mary’s City, Maryland. Both Vaughn and Leckrone are looking forward to their events at this championship. “I am really excited to see how we are going to do. Everyone is going to swim fast with all the work from our new coach and with all the added time in the weight rooms and in the pool,” said Vaughn. 

Leckrone agreed saying, “The men’s team is going to kill it, honestly. There is a general feeling on the men’s team that the fun doesn’t start until two or free weeks from conferences, which gives us a good projection for how we are going to do at conferences. 

When outside of the pool, Vaughn enjoys spending time with her friends on the team, listening to the music, and going to the beach or the river. Leckrone said in his free time he has watched the first six seasons of Game of Thrones within the last few weeks, but also enjoys playing video games with his teammates.