Hall of Fame
The discussion of the most dominant distance freestyler in the 22-year history of the Eastern women’s swimming program begins and ends with Sarah A. (Barber) Grundfast ’08.
In the 500, 1000 and 1650 yard freestyle events in a four-year career between 2004 and 2008, Barber won eight NEISDA (New England Intercollegiate Swimming & Diving Association) Division II-III and four Little East Conference individual championships (plus one LEC title in the 400 individual medley).
Barber will become the second representative from the swim program to gain induction, following sprint freestyler and butterflyer and former assistant coach Amy Golas ’03 in 2014.
Barber’s current program records in the 500 (5:11.31), 1000 (10:39.00) and 1650 (17:50.80) were set in first-place finishes in the NEISDA in her freshman season and remain the program’s most enduring records (only two other current records were set before 2011). Through 2017-18, Barber’s winning times in the 1000 and 1650 in that meet remain Bentley College pool records.
“I credit Sarah for putting our distance program on the map,” said head coach Maureen Fahey. “For four years, Sarah dominated the 500, 1000 and 1650 freestyle events in our conference and in the New England meet. Her school records now stand as the oldest on our record board. Swimming involves repetition, and for distance swimmers, you can multiply that by two or three. She was a machine. I wasn’t surprised when she would negative spilt some of her races – meaning she would come back faster than when she went out. Sarah would practice sometimes up to four hours a day, doing pace set after pace set, never wavering, always willing to put in the effort and with a smile on her face. She readily sought out feedback and actively listened to the coaching staff. There were times when I wonder why I was even keeping splits, because each 50 or 100 split was within tenths of a second of the other. She would get a rhythm going and that was that.”
As a freshman, the Meriden native and 2004 Maloney High School graduate broke program records a total of 20 times and was named Eastern’s Female Rookie-of-the-Year. That season, she also became the second Eastern swimmer to compete in the ECAC Open – qualifying in the 200, 500 and 1650 freestyle. In that meet at the University of Pittsburgh, Barber became the only Eastern swimmer to date to earn points in the meet with a 15th place finish as the 17th seed among 24 competitors in the 1650.
In all, Barber earned All-NEISDA recognition all four years in all three of the distance freestyle events, winning eight times and placing second on four other occasions.
Barber’s immediate accomplishments in the distance events as a freshman at Eastern are even more startling considering the fact that the maximum distance in high school meets is 500 yards.
In addition to leaving the program with all three distance freestyle records, Barber also graduated as the program record-holder in the 200 freestyle (1:59.23) and 200 IM (2:21.62) and 400 IM (4:54.86) and with the second-best time (2:19.71) in the 200 butterfly.
A four-time team MVP and two-year captain, Barber capped a celebrated career as a senior when she was presented with the Kay Fromer Award for having accumulated the most career points among swimmers that year in the NEISDA meet.
Barber holds a B.A. Degree in Graphic Design and is employed as a document fulfillment specialist at Principal Financial Group in Des Moines, IA. Sarah and husband Eric Grundfast – a 2009 Eastern graduate – reside in West Des Moines.
