Swimming and Diving Verify-in: NJAC Meet Approaching

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Montclair State University’s males’s and ladies’s swimming and diving groups are heading to the Hampton Aquaplex in Hampton, Virginia, the place 4 days on the New Jersey Athletic Conference (NJAC) championships will decide who strikes on to 1 closing cease: the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division III Championships in Indianapolis, Indiana.

For head coach Brian McLaughlin, who has been with this system because the 1989–1990 season, this group of swimmers has actually stood out to him.

“I would say every few years, you get a good group,” McLaughlin stated. “A good group of leaders, a nice incoming class, a nice blend, and I think we have that.”

Longtime Montclair State head coach Brian McLaughlin. Photo courtesy of Montclair State Athletics

For the boys’s workforce, sophomore Peter Jarzab is definitely part of the group that McLaughlin referenced. Jarzab set the boys’s program report for the 100 butterfly with a time of 49.08 seconds on the Gettysburg Invitational in December. This is a report spanning practically 50 years of males’s swimming and diving historical past.

“I knew I was close to it,” Jarzab stated. “I knew I was able to get the time, and [being] able to do it in the middle of the season, during hard training, was impactful.”

The New Jersey Athletic Conference Championships will start Feb. 12 in Hampton, VA. Michael Twum-Amponsah | The Montclarion

As for the ladies, who completed the common season with another win than the boys, senior Rourke Peralta has led the best way. Peralta certified for the NCAA championships final season, the place she received the 100 free and broke the college report. This season, she had an eventful Gettysburg Invitational, the place she had the highest instances within the 50, 100 and 200 free, in addition to the 50 and 100 fly.

“It’s a long season, especially in a sport that’s seen as individual. It can be hard sometimes, but we’re really close as a team,” Peralta stated. “All of us together work really hard and we do a good job at supporting each other, so it makes the season more bearable when you have a lot of great people surrounding you.”

Senior Rourke Peralta, Montclair State’s lone nationwide qualifier in 2025, heads to the 2026 NJAC Championships hoping to as soon as once more lengthen her season. Photo curtesy of Montclair State Athletics

Both Peralta and Jarzab talked about the position that tough work performs of their course of. When watching a follow or a meet on the Panzer Athletic Center Pool, it’s onerous to not discover an indication that reads “hard work works,” proper close to the pool. What might seem to be a typical signal truly has a narrative behind it.

“The ‘hard work works’ sign was stolen by one of our former swimmers who’s a high-end club coach in New Jersey,” McLaughlin stated. “He stole it from someone in New York City, who stole it from someone in California… I just like the saying because there’s a lot of things you can do in programs, not just swimming, all sports, but the thing that works, and I think everyone would agree with this, hard work works, it’s [as] simple as that.”

The NJAC championship meets can be held from Feb. 12 –15, and the NCAA Division III Championships from March 18 – 21.