Swimmers up for 4th-straight WAC championship

By: Juan López

Monday, February 8, 2010 - 11:55 PM

04.10. The Nevada swimming and diving team defeated Pacific 150-106 on Saturday in the team’s final home meet of the season. The team will compete at the Western Athletic Conference Championships Feb. 24-27 in San Antonio. Photo by Casey Durkin/Nevada Sagebrush

Margaret Doolittle finished first in the 100 yard Breaststroke with a time of 1:04.10. The Nevada swimming and diving team defeated Pacific 150-106 on Saturday in the team’s final home meet of the season. The team will compete at the Western Athletic Conference Championships Feb. 24-27 in San Antonio. Photo by Casey Durkin/Nevada Sagebrush

Ask Nevada swimmer Margaret Doolittle about her win in a race and she’ll talk about how her teammates cheered her on. Ask her about the many accolades she’s received throughout her four-year career with the Wolf Pack, and she’ll talk about how she couldn’t have done it without her teammates.

Doolittle, who was named the Western Athletic Conference Freshman of the Year in 2006 and the WAC Swimmer of the Year in 2007, competed in the final home meet of her career last Saturday against Pacific.

“When it comes to Margaret, you can sum her up in one word: team,” Nevada swimming and diving head coach Mike Richmond said. “For Margaret, the whole motivation for her is her teammates. She came in as a high school All-American. She could’ve went to the No. 1 school in the nation at the time at Auburn, but she chose to come here to Nevada just because she felt like the family.”

Doolittle will go down as one of the top swimmers in Nevada’s storied program, which has produced multiple All-Americans and Olympians.

She ranks among the top-three in nine races in Wolf Pack history.

“I’ve been lucky to step into a team with great swimmers and great coaches,” Doolittle said. “Whether or not my career would’ve turned out the way it did doesn’t really matter because I know that I enjoyed the time I had here.”

Richmond said Doolittle’s humble attitude is a result of her love for her team.

“When she gets on the blocks, there is just this intensity and this insane drive to win, but it’s not for herself, it’s for her teammates,” Richmond said. “That’s the neatest thing about her. From day one, it’s always been about her teammates. And on the last day, it’ll be about her teammates.”

Now that her career swimming in front of Nevada fans is over, Doolittle and the rest of the Wolf Pack have their eyes set on capturing a fourth-straight Western Athletic Conference Championship. The Championships will take place Feb. 24-27 in San Antonio.

“A distinct advantage we have over every other team in the WAC is that we know how to win a championship. They don’t,” Richmond said. “We’re the only team to have won that title in the last three years, so, logically, no other swimmer or diver in the WAC has won one. We know how it feels like, we know what it takes and I’m confident we’ll be able to do it again.”

Doolittle said she and her teammates take pride in knowing they’ve been the only team to win a title in the past three years, but it doesn’t make this year’s competition any easier.

“We’re extremely confident, but what happened is all in the past,” said Doolittle, who has won a title in each of her years at Nevada. “If we think of that and get cocky, we can lose it just as easily as we’ve won it. Either way, whether or not that happens, I know (the seniors have) done everything we possibly could in our college careers. Winning the WAC again would just be the icing on the cake.”

Juan López can be reached at jlopez@nevadasagebrush.com