Tapering down and doing less yardage at practice to focus on the proper technique of their arm placement and strong kicks, Girls’ Swim prepares for their sectionals at Lake Central where they will compete at sectional prelims Feb. 2, and sectional finals Feb. 4. Boys’ Swim will have their sectionals at Munster with prelims on Feb. 16 and finals on Feb 18.

“Our goal is to send as many people down to state as possible this season,” Angelica Rzeznikowski, senior and a girls’ captain, said. “I have been pushing my team to build their strength and endurance by encouraging them to come to as many practices as possible.”

Putting their hard practice work into action, both the girls and boys teams won their conference meet in Hobart on Jan 21. They use conference to seek out what they need to focus on as they approach sectionals, such as, remembering to hold tight turns, proper kicking technique, and to hold a streamline.

“Working on these little things will help us make our swimming even better, and the sectionals meet showed us how good we can do at sectionals,” Addi Sanow, junior, said. “The captains of the team also push us to be our best.”

To further prepare for these important meets, the teams recently got off of winter training which included more intense practices to build up their strength and endurance. The swimmers completed high intensity sets with very little rest between reps, or they do repeated max effort reps with a decent amount of rest between each one. These sets help the team withstand fatigue and practice how they need to race. 

“But by completing these sets, the swimmers push themselves to the limits of their endurance in practice so that when it comes time to race, they know how to give their all,” Bakker, assistant swim coach, said. “Both types of sets often have the swimmers laying on the pool deck gasping for air.”

As the teams continue to strive and keep improving for sectionals, the team works together to help one another strengthen their weaknesses. 

“We have been working very hard on pushing off the walls because that is our competition weakness,” Casey McNulty, senior and a girls’ captain, said. “We know that we have to pull together as a team if we want to be successful. The team is the closest it has ever been this year, so we have high expectations of each other.”