Swim and Dive teams prepare for season

The Tigers are getting ready for their promising upcoming season

by Jessie Burch

The Tiger swimming and diving team trained hard over winter break to be prepared for conference, now only four weeks away. The SCAC Championships will be taking place Feb. 18 in Rockwall, Tx, and the team has high hopes this year.

The swim team returned back to campus as of Dec. 27 to swim for two weeks during the winter break, alternating one and two-a-day workouts putting up to 15,000 yards a day.

“We’re way more ready than we were on the 23rd of December,” said head swim coach John Ryan.

Divers made their fourth annual trip to San Juan, Puerto Rico for a ten-day stint, working on new dives in two sessions a day.
“This year’s training was perfect,” said head diving coach Stan Randall. “It represents the last chance to learn any new difficult dive… Now we’re just polishing dives they already have.”

The training in Puerto Rico is crucial for divers as they prepare for conference.

“It always helps a lot, because it trains you not only physically but mentally. Diving at the end of a really long week, you’re really tired like at a meet-but you just have to focus and do your dives,” said junior diver Ruth Hahn.

In accordance to the season the teams will compete in two more meets before conference ,then two weekends without competitions prior to the SCAC Championship.

“Regardless [of the outcome], we have no expectations from now until February. We have to focus on that and not get too emotional [about the outcome of these meets],” Randall said.

On the men’s side, the team is expected to win first in the conference.

“I’m pretty optimistic about our competitiveness if we can stay healthy,” Ryan said. “If I were picking a winner, I’d pick us.”
On the women’s side, the competition could be a little more intense against conference favorite Centre College, but they are also expected to do well.

“We’ve beat the favored team in the past. If the women go out into it with fire in their eyes and pride in their heart, then they are prepared to compete hard and will do well in February’s conference championship. We’ve established a winning tradition; they’ll do well,” Ryan said.

Although there is still work to be done before conference, winter training has laid the groundwork for a strong team that will compete hard and looks to excel at the conference championship and even at nationals.