Cheers and chants from the crowd and teammates ring out as swimmers finish first in their race. After three months of discipline and hard work, the swim season is nearing its end. The past couple of months have been filled with fun, personal records (PRs) and lifetime bests for all of LSE’s swimmers.
Out of the team, seniors Maizie Stricker, Lauren Maw, Norah Schmidt, Kennedy Bahm and Gloria Adabie finish up their high school swimming career. Stricker recalls all of the friendships she’s developed within the community and how she anticipates it will continue to help with other aspects of her life.
“The relationships I’ve made and like my friendships that I made on the team have helped me not only in swim but also outside of swim. Like just like the hard work that I’ve had to put into swim has helped me with like other aspects of my life,” she says.
Throughout the season, both coaches have worked tirelessly to keep athletes injury free and motivated.
“We try to address injuries as soon as they come up, try not to let them develop into something more,” Coach Brett Ruoff said. “We’d rather have kids that get treated for injury for a day or two and get over it than develop something that’s more long term. We focus on teaching correct technique, scaling our work loads appropriately so that we’re not overworking athletes more than their bodies are prepared for.”
Regarding motivation, Coach Pam Hovorka believes it needs to come from within an athlete.
“I can help by having individual conversations with swimmers when they are feeling upset about a swim, or just being there for them when they are frustrated.”
Pushing swimmers to do their best, getting new personal records and keeping them conditioned, are the main goals of the coaches each season. As a winter sport, a large concern is the spreading of germs and illness within the team, especially as big meets approach. Athletes are encouraged to take a day off and get better before returning to keep themselves and their teammates healthy when they feel under the weather.
The biggest meets at the end of the season are conference and state. Throughout their time in the pool, the swimmers must work to prepare and strive for cuts. For state there are auto and secondary cuts.
An auto cut is for someone who is guaranteed to go as they meet the time requirement. A secondary cut is for people who are qualified to go to state but will only go if there’s an opening in an event. This means they didn’t quite meet the auto cut time. Swimmers can still go to state without an auto or secondary cut as an alternate in a relay.
Since the numbers are so limited, Southeast’s state swim team only consists of 19 athletes who will compete Feb. 27 through Mar. 1. The rest of the team’s season ended at the conference meet where there were many personal records of the season and even lifetime bests.
“I get most excited for HAC and state swim meets,” Coach Hovorka said. “The setting is electric and hopefully all the hard work leading up to this will pay off with time drops.”
Coach Hovorka pushes her swimmers to finish out the season strong and to put in total effort. Many swimmers are positively impacted by the supportive and fun environment from the team.
Another successful season has sadly come to an end, but it has left behind friendships and records that will be remembered for a lifetime.
