Swim is starting strong in their latest game winning as an overall team against Monache. The Varsity girls swim team recently outscored Monache in its meet. The whole team is striving for more achievements in this upcoming season, as high as reaching League.
With a team of eight boys and eight girls, the Selma High School varsity swim team has been pushing to get stronger and improve in their abilities.
“They have been pushing themselves in every workout and we have had some fast swims early in the season. I am optimistic that we will be a contender in League this year,” says varsity swim Coach Romig.
Along with more people joining the swim team, it’s bringing more hope to coach Romig that there will be a bigger possibility of reaching their goal of competing with bigger teams. There have also been bigger achievements with the development of the team’s skills, especially with Grace Winter, a senior on the varsity swim team, who has worked hard to achieve the goal that both herself and coach Romig have highlighted this season.
“My highest and proudest moment has been finally breaking seven minutes on my five hundred freestyle,” said Grace Winter.
But there have been set-backs that have interfered with swim schedules.
“One of the biggest obstacles that our team has faced is all the rain that we encountered. We’ve had to reschedule various swim meets because of thunderstorms and end practice early due to thunder,” says senior Natalee Mares.
But despite these obstacles, the team has not stopped from working together and having fun interacting with one another. Natalee personally feels that this is her favorite aspect of being in swim, truly motivating her in pushing herself past her limit and working on her skills/technique. This is truly shown through their most recent meet against Monache.
“Overall as a team we won, and I as an individual got 1st on all of my events,” says Natalee.
JV swim Coach Chrystelle hopes to see this same confidence in her swimmers this season so they too can push harder and achieve higher heights. Similar to Natalee, the JV team also love interacting with one another and just creating strong connections with each other, creating a great support system.
“It helps when they’ve swam together. Many of these swimmers know each other from previous seasons and previous sports and those relationships have already been established,” says Coach Chrystelle.
New faces also come with new friendships and support that uplift the team as a whole. It is especially exciting for Coach Chrystelle since she is teaching her swimmers to be more confident in their skills by trying out new events or strokes within their swimming technique, pushing them a bit closer to a bigger goal.
This support and encouragement is shown to be very much appreciated by both Natalee and Grace. Grace specifically explains how swimming has become a safe place for her to release anxiety which is something she has been struggling with. But with practices and racing, it becomes easier for her to deal with her anxiety and depression with an outlet where she can release a lot of her emotions or tension building up inside her.
With the love and support in the swim team, there are individuals such as Grace that are truly impacted greatly by it and are using it to motivate themselves into making this season one to look forward to.
