Class Consciousness

First-years, seniors and the rise of the Eagle women and Big Red men

Heading into the holiday break, the two teams at the top of the SRS rankings are the Emory women and the Denison men. On the women’s side there are four teams - Emory, NYU, MIT, and Kenyon - separated by about 5 total SRS points. On the men’s side it is more of a two team race at the moment, with Denison ahead of Emory by 3.5 SRS points. The big surprise here is that any team is close to the Emory men, let alone ahead of them in SRS points.

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If you want to read our digression on the CSCAA poll, click here:

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Emory women

As we noted elsewhere, the resurgence of the Emory women this season is led by an extraordinary class of first-year athletes. By SRS we had Emory ranked fifth last season (they finished sixth at nationals - MIT moved up to take the fifth spot), with about 1/3rd of their total SRS points generated by four seniors. It was not obvious that the Eagles would be near the top of the table, let alone in first place, this far into the 2024-25 season.

It helps that Megan Jungers and Penelope Helm - the top two SRS points producers in last season’s senior class - came back as graduate students.

But the main difference is pretty easy to spot on the table below:

Emory Eagles SRS points in women’s events, by class

You can see the SRS points contributions-by-athlete in the footnote. Keep in mind, SRS measures historically fast swims, so even an SRS score of 0.10 means - in the context of the recent history of Division III - you swam really fast.¹

We are fairly confident that this is Caitlin Crysel, Emory first-year.

It is also worth noting the huge contributions from Katie Cohen (sophomore) and Meredith Liu (junior). They join first-year Elodie Mitchell and the aforementioned Megan Jungers in the group of Emory women with 3-4 SRS points so far this season.

Denison men: a more complicated picture

In some ways, the Denison men are just the mirror image of the Emory women.

Denison Big Red SRS points in men’s events, by class

That huge SRS total from the senior class involves the usual suspects. Like last season, Patrick Daly leads the team in SRS.

That similarity is misleading, however, because it undersells his contribution. Whereas last season Patrick Daly was basically top 25 in SRS points in men’s Division III, right now he is top five.

And Lucas Conrads is top 10 in SRS points. Those guys were always really good. Now they are way better. Other senior class SRS contributors include Tyler Distenfeld, Elijah Venos, Gavin Jones, Christian McIntire, Max Soja, and Christian Narcelles. When it comes to serious contributors in the senior class, Denison runs deep.

This is probably a good time to recap an aspect of SRS that matters for mid-season evaluation. SRS is not a counting stat. Your SRS total in an event is derived from your season’s best (SB) swim, not the total of all your SRS-positive swims. So, an athlete’s SRS for a given event might or might not go up during the course of the season, depending on whether they beat their SB time in that event.

However, there is a positive correlation between the number of chances an athlete has to establish a new SB and their SRS score. This is just common sense. One more chance to swim a 50 Free is one more chance to set a new SB in 50 Free. Plus, not all chances are equal. Championship meets in February and March feature athletes who are fully tapered and jacked-up on adrenaline. SBs at those meets are common. 

Complicating the simple narrative

It isn’t all about the seniors, though. For instance, the sophomores are major contributors.

Denison sophomores

We wrote about Jack Hill last season when he was swimming for Ramapo. He was very fast then, and he is even faster now that he has transferred to Denison.

Devin Testin had a very strong first season, and halfway through his sophomore season he is already contributing 50% more SRS points than last season.

And then there are three first-years Nick Hensel, George Goins, and Ben Bevill contributing major points. Nick Hensel has already accumulated more than three SRS points, making him one of the five most productive first-years in men’s Division III.

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