Girls’ swimming: Despite tough start, team remains optimistic

The girls’ swim team hopes to dominate this season with the advantage of an extremely strong team led by seniors Elizabeth Murray, Megan Nolet and Lauren Opatrny.

Last season, the team placed eighth overall at CCS, ranking fifth out of the public schools, and the girls think they can compete with anyone.

“We should be placing in the top 10 at CCS,” said Murray. “We have done it these last couple of years, so it’s possible for us.”

“Paly and Homestead are our biggest challenges,” added Nolet.

The girls swam their first meet this season against Homestead at home on March 10. Despite frigid weather that seemed to turn the girls into icicles, they had good swims. Because of technical difficulties, the coaches are still working out the final scoring.

“For a first meet I think we did pretty well,” said Nolet. “We won the 200 medley relay to start off the meet, so that was good.”

One main goal for the girls this year is to work on their team bonding. Since club swimmers do not actually practice with the school team, it is difficult for athletes to get to know each other on the team. The co-captains brought Rice Krispies, Clementines and fruit gummies for the everyone the day before their first meet to try bringing the group together over treats.

“We need to improve our unity as a team and this is how we’re going to start,” said Opatrny pointing to the heap of snacks. “We’re working on it.”

The co-captains see this year’s team as being similar to and perhaps even better than last year’s group.

“We lost some people from last year,” said Opatrny. “But I don’t think we lost anyone who went to CCS. So, we’re actually stronger this year.”

“I expect some of our non-club swimmers to be stepping up,” said coach Kristen Thompson. “Not only do we have a very fast group of seniors, we also have some strong sophomores that came in last year, including Natalie Cheung and Rebecca Chen. This is going to be a really fun season.”