Friday, October 25, 2013

Swimming and diving preparing hard for a new season

By Skylar Finkelstein
Cardinal Staff

This year both the swimming and diving team has increased in size, consisting of 31 swimmers and 6 divers. Swim coach Eric Lindquist expressed his pride in the growth of participants and said the team is in achieving its goal or 40 swimmers. Diving coach Jeremiah Jackson had four new divers join the team this year, up from just two divers last season.

As both teams expand in size, the talent grows as well. The athletes and coaches are putting many hours of practice into perfecting racing skills and diving techniques to achieve time drops in events and higher scores on dives.

The outlook for the season is positive from the new members along to the returning athletics possessing leadership roles. The season looks bright, and the conference is amazing, bursting with speed and committed swimmers and divers. Another positive to the season is that Saint Mary’s will be hosting more swimming and diving invites, home pool advantage one could say. The next home event will be the Saint Mary’s Invitational on Nov. 2.

New to the team this year, sophomore Lauren Pepper said, “The swim team is like one big family, everyone is really nice and cares for each other. Also the coaches are very supportive of our schooling.” This year’s athletes are practicing hard to increase their chances at the conference championship.

Diving captain Sarah Jansen said she thinks this year the divers will do “very well because they have more experience than anyone on the team from last year. Four of the six [divers] dove before coming here.” Jansen herself started diving in 2010 when she joined the diving team at Saint Mary's

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