By Jim Fenton
BRIDGEWATER, Mass. -- Her memorable career with the Bridgewater State University women's swimming & diving team has included three trips to the NCAA Division III Northeast/North Regional.
Cailey Simard (Haverhill, Mass.) has competed in New York City, Waterville, Maine, and Springfield, Mass., qualifying for the national meet in 2025.
Simard, the only BSU female swimmer or diver to reach the NCAAs, made solo trips to the regionals hosted by New York University, Colby College and Springfield College.
When Simard makes her fourth and final appearance in the Northeast/North Regional next month, however, she will have company.
Two of Simard's first-year teammates will be joining her after qualifying for the regional last weekend.
Simard will once again be competing in the 1-meter and 3-meter diving events at the regional, to be held Feb. 27-28 at Connecticut College, after qualifying earlier in the season.
The other two Bears who will be in the regional are freshman Sienna DeLucia (Wallingford, Conn.), who will be in the 1-meter event, and sophomore Gianna Varady (Highland Park, N.J.), who qualified in the 3-meter event.
The divers in the Northeast/North Regional will be vying for a spot in the NCAAs, to be held in Indiana.
After having just one fellow diver on the women's roster the past three seasons, Simard is now one of seven on the 2025-26 squad.
And two of them, Varady and DeLucia, have excelled in their first seasons with the Bears.
"I'm very fortunate that I have this group," said BSU diving coach Nicole Radanovics, a former diver for the Bears. "We start the season by saying that I want you guys to lean on each other and rally around each other. They've taken the reins on that and run wih it.
"We've gotten comments from officials and parents that they just love to see how the team shows up for each other and motivates each other."
Simard owns four BSU diving records, has been the Little East Conference Diver of the Year all three seasons and owns the conference championship meet records.
She advanced to the NCAAs for the 1-meter and 3-meter events last season, traveling to Greensboro, N.C.
The added depth of divers this season has helped push her even further.
"I think it's been awesome," said Simard. "There's more people at my level, so I have more competition. It's been exciting and definitely more fun.
"They really help me because I get to push them and myself. Us all being around the same level, you can really step up to a different level."
DeLucia wasn't going to continue her diving career after a successful run in high school.
She will be playing lacrosse for BSU in the spring, but decided to keep diving after hearing about the Bears' success in that event with Simard.
"I wanted to be a teacher, and Bridgewater has a great education program," said DeLucia. "I was going to do lacrosse but then I saw they have a great diving program. I reached out to the coach. I have two teams, two families here. It's awesome.
"I had a relative recommend Bridgewater to me and I've always known about it. When I came to visit, it was an awesome experence and I knew from there it's where I wanted to be."
Varady, like DeLucia, is a former gymnast but she did not begin diving until joining the team at Norwich University for the 2024-25 season.
She finished second in 1-meter diving at the Great Northeast Athletic Conference championship meet.
After the spring semester, Varady transferred to BSU and is majoring in criminal justice.
"I've always been a gymnast and I wanted to pick up a sport in college and figured diving translated the best," said Varady. "It was definitely difficult. I wasn't used to it, but I think I picked it up pretty quickly.
"I did good for never diving before. I came here to Bridgewater to kind of grow and get better. I have some family in the area and my coach at Norwich had great things to say about the program here."
Simard has finished first in two events against Wheaton College and in a tri-meet with Saint Michael's and Maine Maritime. She was first in the 1-meter and second in the 3-meter at the
BSU Invitational.
Varady was first in the 3-meter at the BSU Invitational and the tri-meet with Brandeis and Keene State and second against Wheaton and in the Saint Michael's-Maine Maritime tri-meet. She has placed third in all four meets in the 1-meter.
DeLucia has been the Little East Rookie Diver of the Week four times. She was first in 1-meter diving agianst Brandeis and Keene State and second behind Simard three times.
In addition to those three divers, the BSU roster included juniors Ava Anderson (Lynn, Mass.), a consistent points-getter in her career, Saje Cosby (Dorchester, Mass.) and Jillian Hallman (Raynham, Mass.) plus senior Molly Roberts (Weymouth, Mass.) on the board.
"We're in a really special time frame right now with not only the volume that we have but the depth and the quality of divers,'' said Radanovics. "It's more than we could ever dream of for the program.''
The path was begun by Simard, who brought BSU diving to a regional and now a national stage, and the depth of the divers is only growing.
"She's one of the biggest people I look up to," said DeLucia. "It's so big to me that I have her as a teammate. She's so amazing at diving. She's one of the biggest helps for me.
"Diving is 70 percent mental, 30 percent physical. It gets really hard. She really helps me with that, overcoming the bumps we have. She's a great teammate.
"It's been awesome. I'm so excited. They're all my best friends. To watch them dive is amazing and it's amazing for Bridgewater."
Varady, in just her second season as a diver, has benefited from being alongside Simard.
"It's great," said Varady. "I think Cailey really pushes me every day and is one of the main reasons why I was able to do this.
"I think for all of us, it's great. I think we really push each other in practice every day. It's been exciting to see our scores build over time."
Radanovics has watched all of her divers work so well together this season, making that area a strength for the Bears.
Now, two of them will be joining Simard at the regionals, looking to move on to the nationals.
"Both of them (DeLucia and Varady) have a very similar mindset to Cailey and that has been put on display with how much they're willing to push themselves to succeed," said Radanovics. "With all of them being in that same level and having the same kind of drive, it's a really great echo chamber for them.
"It allows them to look around and see what everybody else is doing and say, 'I can do that, I can push myself to try that harder dive.' It's been super beneficial for all three of them."
BSU returns to action Saturday when it travels to Babson College.
Simard is hoping to get back to the NCAAs and improve on what she did in '25 during her first trip.
"That's the goal, go back to the nationals, maybe doing a personal best," said Simard. "That would be a great way to finish."
DeLucia and Varady will be joining her on the trip to Connecticut College, leaning on her experience for the regional competition.
"I knew I wanted to qualify for the regionals," said DeLucia. "I started off not really scoring as high as I wanted to and I had to work hard for it."
Said Varady: "I think that's going to be so cool, going with Cailey. She always talks to us about how it was being alone there all three years. For her last year, it's going to be so special."