The season of giving may be well over, but the Rowan University swimming and diving teams are still handing out losses to the opposition.

In their last meet against The College of New Jersey, the brown and gold swimmers bucked a trend that had been going on since before they were born.

By a margin of 178-122, the men’s swimming and diving team won the New Jersey Athletic Conference for the first time since the 1992-93 season. At that time, the university was still known as “Rowan College.”

The women’s team also found success against the Lions, dominating their meet, 190-94. This marks the first season since 1998-99 that the Profs are conference champions.

“It’s an amazing accomplishment. For both teams to do it, it’s pretty much what we’ve been working for for the last three years,” head coach Brad Bowser said. “For a couple years now, especially for the men’s side, it’s always been super close and tough for us to really dictate where we should be. Everything all lined up this year for us to succeed.”

The men’s team (7-0) took first in a slew of individual events: the 50, 100 and 1000 freestyles, the 100 and 200 breaststrokes, the 200 butterfly and the 200 individual medley.

They also took home the 200 medley relay.

Sophomore diver Sean Piacente placed first in the one and three meter boards.

On the women’s side, the brown and gold took first in the 50, 100, 200, 500 and 1000 freestyles. They also won the 100 and 200 backstrokes, 100 and 200 breaststrokes, 100 and 200 butterfly and 200 individual medley.

The women are now 5-2 on the year after starting the season 0-2.

“I just think we were able to fill in the holes that [TCNJ] used to fill,” Bowser said. “There wasn’t really much of a difference in the top end. Our top end really hasn’t changed, their top end really hasn’t changed, but we were able to get the fourths and the fifths instead of the sevenths and the eighths like last year.”

Bowser continued to laud the freshman class of swimmers, saying that they helped make the team stronger in three events. He added that he thinks winning the NJAC will help recruiting, which will only help the team in the future.

“Every year we’ve been able to reach more and more accomplishments in my book,” Bowser said. “Last year was to win [the Metropolitan Championship] and to bring more than one guy to NCAA’s. This year it’s to win both championships, be the best team at the MET’s for men and women and bring above 10 people to NCAA’s.”

With the conference schedule now over, Bowser said that the focus is now on the Metropolitan Championships on Feb. 17-19.

Before that, the teams will be going to Philadelphia this weekend to take on La Salle University. The Explorers are a Division I program and will pose a good challenge for the Profs.

Bowser said that the biggest problem will be overcoming the depth that La Salle has since the program is able to offer scholarships to its swimmers.

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