Hempfield grad Camryn Watters breaking records as freshman swimmer at Penn State Behrend

First, the obligatory swimming pun: Hempfield grad Camryn Watters has made a big splash in her freshman season with the Penn State Behrend swimming and diving team.

Then, an acknowledgement of the almost comedic nature of Watters’ last name as it relates to her chosen sport.

Easy pickings for anyone with even a sliver of a sense of humor.

PS Behrend swimming coach Jennifer Wallace lists “quietly funny” among Watters’ attributes. In the pool, however, Watters is a serious competitor and a serious threat to bring home an Allegheny Mountain Collegiate Conference title — or titles — in her first season of college competition.

In her first meet, against a perennially strong Grove City squad, Watters won the 100 backstroke and 200 backstroke, placed second in the 100 free and was third in the 200 individual medley. Her encore was even better.

On Oct. 21, Behrend faced Westminster, a team the Lions women never had beaten.

“I really didn’t know that we didn’t beat them before,” Watters said. “On the bus (going) there, (Wallace) brought it up.”

The Lions jumped to a comfortable lead, but Westminster, also a perennial contender in the Presidents’ Athletic Conference, started to close the gap. Penn State Behrend, though, would seal the win by sweeping the top three places in the 200 IM and taking places one and three in the 400 freestyle relay.

Watters was part of the 400 free relay team. She also swam the leadoff leg for the winning 200 medley relay team. More significantly, she placed first and broke the program freshman record in the 100 back, touching the wall in 1 minute, 1.24 seconds.

“They started catching up … and then we started freaking out a little bit,” Watters said. “But we pulled it together at the end with the last relays, and that was really exciting.”

Watters continued to break records in subsequent meets. She now holds the program record — not just the freshman record — in the 100 back (58.38), shattering a mark that had stood for 10 years.

She also is the program record holder in the 200 back and the 50 back.

The 50 backstroke is not an actual event but rather the leadoff leg of the medley relay. Her time in the 200 back (2:08.39) broke the previous mark by more than 2 seconds.

Further, her time in the event would have won last season’s AMCC title by more then 2 seconds.

“Her high school times already were faster than our (100 back) record, so we knew what the potential was in the shorter events,” Wallace said.

The 200 backstroke, on the other hand, was a different story. There is no 200 back event in Pennsylvania high school swimming, so it was — um — uncharted waters for Watters. She acknowledged there was a big learning curve.

“It was kind of scary because I really didn’t know how to swim it,” Watters said. “I just kept asking (Wallace) and my high school coach for advice.

“I just kind of died a lot because I went out too fast, or I didn’t go out fast enough and thought I had more to give. So it was trying to balance that.”

While Watters appears to be on track to winning an AMCC title in the 200 back — the conference meet will begin Feb. 14 — the 100 backstroke title also seems well within reach. Her time of 58.38 already is the conference record for the event. (That mark is for open conference meets not including the conference championship meet.)

Her 100 back time is more than 3 seconds better than the next-closest competitor, and her 200 back time is more than 6 seconds better.

Backstroke is Watters’ top event, but Wallace believes she can be a threat to win the 50 free in the conference championship meet. The latest AMCC top-10 lists have her time of 25.41 just .34 seconds behind Alfred State’s Madison Snayczuk.

Watters won the 50 free against Pitt-Bradford and has been used in freestyle relays as well.

“I think we have a strong potential for her at championships … to win the 100 and 200 backstroke,” Wallace said. “Our ultimate goals are NCAA cuts (in the backstroke events), which are a significant time improvement but not outside (her) realm.

“It might be, let’s work on getting the ‘B’ cut this year and the invite time next year.”

Watters’ expectations for her freshman season were a little more modest: just improve her times from high school.

That hasn’t happened yet. At Hempfield, she swam as fast as 57.7 in the 100 back, a good half-second faster than her best time at Behrend. Ultimately, she wants to get into the 56s in that event.

In terms of her other top events, Watters is shooting for the 24-second range in the 50 free and 2:05 in the 200 backstroke.

Those might not happen this year, but Watters is only just beginning to tap her potential as a college swimmer. In the more immediate future, there is her first conference championship meet to think about.

Winning titles, obviously, would be nice, but Watters is focused more on her times, and if those are good enough to place first, so be it.

But if the early results are any indication, Watters is likely to leave her AMCC competition — ahem — all wet.

“I like to just think about my times and not anyone else,” she said. “So just improving myself is more important to me.”