LEWISTON, Maine -- For anyone willing to recount, the last time a Bates College swimmer or diver engaged in intercollegiate competition was February 2020. 

Yes, Bates swimmers have logged countless hours of training in Tarbell Pool in the meantime, but real competition is finally near once again for the program's two healthy-sized rosters (31 on the men's team and 36 on the women's side). Add in the fact that preseason practices began two weeks earlier than in past years, and the Bobcats' excitement is palpable.

"Last year, we had our inter-squad meets, and that was really helpful just to have that as a goal for the athletes," said associate head coach Vanessa Williamson. "But to actually have (meets) on the calendar, and being able to start two weeks earlier than we normally do, has made a big difference for the program, I think. A ton. We just did our test set last weekend, that we do every year, and the results from that were outstanding. We're definitely ready to get out there and race."

The season begins somewhat unofficially Saturday at Bowdoin with a new non-scoring event, the CBB Relays, pitting Bates against its two main rivals, Bowdoin and Colby. 

"We had more time this year to get the athletes in shape, and talked as a coaching staff with Colby and Bowdoin, and thought a relay meet would be a great way to kick off the year, since we do have an extra weekend for competition," 15th-year Bates head coach Peter Casares explained. "It's just a bunch of relays, some of them fun, like an underwater relay, some of them mixed up a little bit, like crescendo relay, where there's a 50, then 100, then a 150, and then, a 200. Then some 300s of fly, 300s of breaststroke, 300s of backstroke... just a bunch of different relays to get the teams together, all of us on deck, and racing again."

Bates then has two more meets before the traditional dividing line in the schedule of the holiday break and annual January training trip to Florida. The Bobcats will compete at Wesleyan University on Nov. 20 along with Wheaton (Mass.) College, before Colby hosts the two-day Maine State Meet Dec. 3-4. Bates will have one home meet, against Bowdoin on Jan. 22. The NESCAC Women's Championships take place Feb. 10-13 followed by the NESCAC Men's Championships Feb. 17-20, both to be held at Colby. Finally the Bobcats expect to compete again at the NCAA Championships, taking place March 16-20 in Indianapolis.

To refresh our pandemic-addled memories, the 2019-20 season came to an end shortly before the 2020 NCAA Division III Championships were to be held, truncating what potentially could have been the program's most successful venture at nationals, considering Bates' program-record number of competitors who qualified: 11 on the women's team and one from the men's team in Nathan Berry '23 (Augusta, Maine).

Prior to that season's untimely end, the Bates men's team had its best-ever showing at the NESCAC Men's Championships, at fourth place, after the Bates women's team had also placed fourth in the NESCAC Women's Championship, for the third year in a row, a week earlier. 

Naturally, some stars from that year have graduated, led by 15-time All-American Janika Ho '20 and 15-time All-American Caroline Apathy '21, the No. 1 seed in the 100-yard butterfly for the 2020 NCAAs who sadly missed out on competing in two NCAA Championship meets in her outstanding career.

But so much of the program remains, including a veteran and successful coaching staff and a great deal of returning talent, who will be augmented by two classes of swimmers and divers green to intercollegiate competition but who, like their teammates, have been training, despite not competing, for the past 18 months or so.

Division III coaches have ranked the Bates women's team 21st in the CSCAA Division III preseason poll, sixth in the Northeast-North Region, one of four regions in DIvision III swimming and diving. The Bates men are ranked ninth in the Northeast-North.

The Bobcat women's team includes six 2020 NCAA qualifiers, led by 2020 NESCAC Rookie of the Year Gabby Smart (Clinton, Mont.), now a junior. Smart was the fifth-fastest entry at 2020 NCAAs in the 500 freestyle, as well as seventh in the 200 backstroke and eighth in the 400 individual medley. Other high-performing NCAA veterans include junior two-time All-American Abigail Gibbons (Westtown, N.Y.), senior one-time All-American Isabel Mohammadi-Hall (Saratoga, Calif.), senior two-time All-American Maya Reynoso Williams (Somerville, Mass.), senior four-time All-American Suzy Ryckman (Riverside, Conn.), senior four-time All-American Caroline Sweeney (New Canaan, Conn.), and junior one-time All-American Megan Strynar (Lexington, S.C.).

Sweeney captains the women's team along with seniors Kaley Swintak (Barrington, R.I.) and Virginia Guanci (Melrose, Mass.).

The men's team is captained by seniors Pieter Cory (Dublin, Calif.) and Jack Johnson (Brewster, Mass.), two versatile swimmers who lead a large group of returning veterans of NESCAC Championship meets, including Berry, senior Andrew Hall (Little Silver, N.J.), junior John Marcolina (Mystic, Conn.), senior Chris Draper (Armonk, N.Y.), senior Dan Waterland (Chadds Ford, Pa.), senior Kyle Jorgensen (Lawrenceville, N.J.) and junior Nate Sommer (Terre Haute, Ind.). The men's team has six first-years and six sophomores ready to make their collegiate debuts.

The program is also bolstered by a new diving coach, former University of Maine diver Nick Jensen, who will oversee a corps of six divers in junior Julia Bisson (North Yarmouth, Maine), junior Sophia Ham (Falmouth, Maine), junior Alicia Meshulam (Brookline, Mass.), sophomore Connor Sahs (Miami, Fla.), sophomore Amelia Wallis (Norwich, Vt.), and first-year Ellie Wilson (Needham, Mass.).

Though Saturday's CBB Relays will produce no official results, the swimmers' times will give Casares and staff some data to work with going forward, and the athletes' competitive juices will finally get some release.

"I think they're fired up and ready to go," said Casares. "And I think we're going to just keep talking to the freshmen and sophomores and say, 'Hey, keep an eye on what's going on with your juniors and seniors, watch how they hold themselves, watch what they do. Let's get our swagger back at meets,' and do what Bobcats in the pool have done for the last 14 years I've been here."