Everything that has happened to the Rowan women’s swimming and diving team this season has shaped and prepared them for the upcoming Metropolitan Championships.

This season has been an enormous confidence booster for the Profs. Heading into their first meet, there was sort of an unknown surrounding the squad. The team had lost nine swimmers from the previous year, had a small roster of only 16 women and didn’t really know what to expect from the incoming freshman class.

However, everything seems to have fallen into place for the Profs. The upperclassmen have been great leaders in the pool and have put together consistent performances. The incoming freshmen, including Miranda Coughlan and Gabby Gligor, have had phenomenal rookie seasons and have been valuable additions to Rowan’s relay squad.

For head coach Brad Bowser, he has been very pleased and impressed with his team’s individual performances and growth this season.

“I think it has been an excellent season,” Bowser said. “The efforts were totally there from every single one of them. I really felt like they came together as a team as the season went on.”

The Profs have not only seen a great deal of individual success, but have also performed well collectively as a team. Rowan, who was selected to finish fourth in the New Jersey Athletic Conference preseason coaches poll, ended the regular season with an impressive second place finish in the conference standings.

After exceeding their preseason expectations and proving themselves to be one of the elite teams in the conference, the brown and gold cannot help but feel good about themselves heading into the Metropolitan Championships.

“I think mentally we are actually doing really well right now considering we were picked to finish fourth in the conference and [we ended up] finishing second,” senior Julia DelNero said. “That’s really keeping everyone together. Everyone has been training really hard and we feel confident heading into the upcoming championships.”

Confidence has been so vital to Rowan’s 2015-16 success. Throughout the season, each swimmer has grown individually and has become more comfortable with their respective role on the team.

“I’m more mentally prepared [heading into the Metropolitan Championships],” Gligor said. “At the beginning of the season I wasn’t really sure about my times or the outcomes. Now I am more confident and I know where I’m supposed to be.”

Rowan will try to fine-tune its techniques and clean up some of its errors during the next couple weeks of practice.

The team’s practices in the past have been focused on “grinding it out” in the pool, improving stamina and becoming stronger swimmers. However, in these final weeks, the Profs will take things a little easier and focus on improving some finer points in an effort to shave some time off their final swims.

“We started cutting back on the work load, on the weights, the yardage that we’re swimming and the time that we’re in the pool,” Bowser said. “The focus has sort of changed a little bit. We are now trying to clean up everything.”

The Metropolitan Championships will be held at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, on Friday, Feb. 19, and will conclude on Sunday, Feb. 21.

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