Record Number of Girls on Swim and Dive Team

By Meghan Shirling

This year a record number of girls, 69 swimmers and seven divers, tried out for the girls swim and dive team. Coach Rob Cole knew that with this many girls, he either had to make cuts or split the JV team into three parts. Since Cole is all about giving each girl a chance, he decided to split the team into three parts, thus creating the Wite, Blue and Black JV swim teams

“To give each grils a chance to imporove, I decided to split the team,” Cole said. “It was a hard decision but to me it seemed better than cutting girls.”

Cole divded the JV teams into the White, Black, and Blue groups. The White group is made up of eight girls that practice six days a week and three of those pracitces are with varsity. In years past this group used to be called JV plus.

The Blue and Black groups both consist of 28 girls and switch off days practicing. The only difference of the Black and Blue team is the intervals. Black team usually has the slower interval.

Sophomore Sara Benson is part of the White team and notices that their practices are harder than the rest of the JV teams.

“Practicing three days a week with varstiy raelly helps me push myself. I wouldn’t be able to do that on JV,” Benson said.

At team dinners, where the whole JV and varsity teams get together and bond over food, you can see the divison between the teams. Varsity sits together talking about how they cannot wait until Power Hour, and how long their leg hair has grown over the past week. Two girls get up and people start asking if they will get them another slice of fruit pizza, or another bread stick? Junior Meg Stanley is having her fiffth slice of fruit pizza, and still getting up to get more. A bet is going around on the team seeing how many slices she will have this time.

An occasional White team member may be with them, but they are on their own little group with some Black and Blue team members. But, many of the girls sit in their friend group from their team. For most of the time there has been a divide between the varsity and JV, but this year a divide between the three JV teams is just as present as the varsity JV divide.

Hour 4 Journalism | The Harbinger Online

Sophomore Maddie Schoemann talks with team mates during the break in the meet against South

“Last year it felt like a team dinners everyone was looking forward to,” sophomoe Maddie Schoemann said. “But this year, only half the team will show up. And it is usually the people who have practice that day.”

With the team dividing up it has hurt the team bonding and sophomore Anne Foster has noticed it. Not everyone shows up to pracitice anymore and those who do are the ones who are the closest together.

“We don’t really talk liek we used to last year,” Foster said. “But, there are still meets adn Saturday practices. I look forward to those days because I get to see all my friends on the other teams.”

For the freshman this is what swimming will be like them for the next four years if this many girls try out again next year.

“The team bonding has changed since last year,” sophomore Cicely Krebill said. “Especially for the freshman this year. They never got to know as many sophomores, juniors, or seniors as they would if we all practiced together. That was my favorite memory of swim team and I wish they could experience it. That is what swim team is all about.”

With the teams divided the swimmers get more one of one attention. The coaches are able to focus on their strokes more then they did last year.

“I feel like Nick (the JV coach) is able to coach us more on our strokes and turns,” Foster said.

The girls like the split for that reason. They get more one on one time and can finish the sets unlike last year with everyone in the pool.

“Last year with about thirty girsl in the pool in three lanes when we had varsity it was hard to pay attention to all of the girls,” JV coach Nick Erker said. “This year I really got to focus on the girls and thier stroke and not have to worry about twenty other people.”

Erker still misses having all the girls together because he liked seeing the girls becoming such good freinds. The only thing he likes better this year is being able to pay attention to the girls.

Most of the girls appreciate the attention too, but miss the team bonding.

“The only thing that I miss from last year is the team bonding,” Benson said. “Last year I felt like I knew the team. This year with it broken up it’s really hard to make the connection with everyone. But I like the attention I am getting this year.”

Cole doesn’t know if it will stay the same this year or go back to having one juge JV team.

“It just depends on how many girls try out again next year,” Cole said. “It also depends on how the girls like it and the results of the meets.”