Looking Back at a Great Swim Season

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Sam Royce heads down his lane with record breaking speed.

Ryan Watt and Will Stark

By Ryan Watt and Will Stark
Hawkeye Editor and Staff Writer

This last month was the last month of our swim team’s season. The Alta Swim team this year has 97 swimmers and they had 18 swimmers go to State which is the most swimmers from Alta to go to State in one year.
“This was the most fun I have had all school year,” said Jane Wetzel when asked about how much she loved the swim season. “My favorite part about it was probably the team dinners or the 100 100s.”
Alta swim has a special tradition that other schools don’t have, the 100 100s: a three-hour practice where the swimmers have to swim 4 laps one hundred times. The incentive; a team dinner that only the people who make it can attend. That and the bragging rights to be able to say that you survived one of, if not, the hardest practices of the year.
Team dinners aren’t that uncommon though for the Alta Swim team. It is also tradition to hold a team dinner at the school after every home meet. These team dinners are a great way to spend time and socialize with the swimmers on the team. To some people, these dinners are their favorite part of the Alta Swim team.
“I like the meets because they are competitive and fun,” replied Jaden Tu when he was asked what his favorite part of Alta Swim was. Felicity Harman then added, “My favorite part was probably the swim meets too because they were just fun and you would have so many people cheering you on. And I just loved getting to hang out with all my friends.”
This year Alta had 12 meets, including State. As the year progressed, the swimmers got faster as well. Alta High swimmers beat their personal records and some even ended up going to State. The team even dominated at Regions when the Girls Team won second and the Boys team won third place out of the entire region.
“I get the most out of my swimmers by encouraging them and being specific on what needs to be improved.” Coach Kimble works with her swimmers to make them faster. She gives them hard sets to make them faster and critiques their technique so that they can improve at the next meet. Something Coach Kimble loves about swimming the most is that she’s always been a swimmer, so naturally she loves the sport. She loves the swimmers as well and she gets as excited as her swimmers when all of the work her swimmers show demonstrates itself in their events.
Overall this season was a great season. This was the first time we had a swimmer qualify for each event at State and in general, the swim team as a whole got a lot stronger and faster. Great job Alta Swim and we can’t wait to see what you do next year!