Over the weekend, the boys and girls swim teams competed in their conference meet held at Maconaquah. The girls’ team placed second in the conference, and the boys’ team placed third. Carter Armstrong, Maci Garland, and Maryn Zeck really showed up for the team with combined multiple first-place finishes in different events. In response to the conference meet, the coach for the girls’ team, Mandy Hall, said, “The girls swam and dove really well this year at our new TRC conference. Their training has proven to show them success in the water. We are back in the pool at practices putting in the yards to build back up so that we can taper down for sectional prelims, in hopes of having many swimmers qualify for the finals on February 3rd. Both coaches and swimmers are excited with the time drops from Conference to carry over into the 2024 sectionals!”
One of the greatest strengths of the two swim teams is the number of people they have. The girls’ team has 30 girls which allows them to have swimmers in all three individual events and all 3 relays as well as diving. The boys’ team is very fortunate to have multiple swimmers as well. Many teams are not able to even meet the requirements to swim at every event. The coaches happen to be sisters, and that is one of their favorite parts about coaching. They both enjoy being able to coach alongside each other. Coach Ramer shared, “Our strength this year is our numbers. We have a bigger group and more athletes can swim multiple events. We have veteran swimmers who have been swimming for a few years and are leading the team. We also have 2 divers this year that help us in our meets when other teams do not have any divers.” It is great to see our team is able to participate in multiple events as well as diving. In one instance, Kruz Freeman, a junior on the team, volunteered to swim with the other team, so they had enough people to compete in a medley. It is great to see sportsmanship like that coming from our team members.
Going into sectionals, Maci Garland, a senior, thinks Culver Military Academy is the strongest opponent. She said they usually are pretty good and usually win the sectional. Even with the competitiveness of the sectional, she thinks at least a few girls will make it to the finals. Carter Armstrong, a junior, also thinks Culver Military Academy is one of the strongest opponents on the boys’ side of things, but he also believes the boys will place fairly well.
We all know the age-old question of whether water is wet or not. Some people think water is technically wet and some people think it is not, but is there anyone better to ask than the people who spend the majority of their time in it? The swimmers spend at least two hours after school in the water and in response to being asked the question, Maci and Carter both said water is in fact wet.
