Swim and Dive

Diving into the swim season i written by: Mary Martiez n the wake of a new season, the Women’s Swim and Dive team is making many new changes in their tenth year. Starting off with new senior leaders and freshmen, the girls find new and interesting ways to push for their best. “Last year we only really had three leaders, this year we have many more leaders and they are stepping up and taking things more serious than last year. This year everything is the same with practice except we plan on pushing ourselves past our limit,” sophomore Reese True said. Along with the senior leaders and new freshmen, there are a few changes being made that the girls have to get used to. Having new rules is different and having to get used to them with new people can be challenging but rewarding. “Some new things this year are the rules. I heard that when people are doing relays, the first person doesn’t get their time because of the set timing and there are smaller schools that may not have people to do relays,” junior Kayla Minck said. Every sport can be challenging when the athletes have to learn new routines in practice but it is also an opportunity to learn and grow as an athlete. When practicing, having new equipment to use and learn new moves on is when the athletes can become better swimmers. “This year we have blocks at the pool which is a big game-changer for our community center. We are excited about our first home meet, especially because our team is going to go super fast off those blocks,” senior Julia Blanchard said. While there are many swimmers, there are only 6 divers. Having divers on the team helps since they earn points as well. With being on different levels of the team, how they count points are making sure they watch the team one by one practicing to see if they can learn their dive without having any trouble. “We practice five days a week in the morning. During practice, we practice our 5 main dives and all as a team we will practice like it is an actual meet. But having meets it is different, for being on Varsity as a diver you have to be able to do 11 dives well and meets for everyone else you have to have 5 down,” junior Lauren Barnett said. “This year is different because we lost a few seniors and we have new freshmen coming in” sophomore emma huyser said.

graphic by: Braden Clapper

The lady Eagle’s Swim and Dive team had their first home meet on Decamber 11. They brought home a win against William Chrisman, Truman, and Van Horn. “Overall, the meet went realy well, even though I didn’t do teh greatest on my dives. I’m really excited for the rest of the season,” junior Alex Murphy said. photos by: Ashton Overby