There are so many different well-known sports at our school, such as our dance team, which won nationals, or our soccer team, which places amazingly at state every year. However, there is one sport that flies right by everyone’s heads: our swim team! Our swimmers compete in the fall, for girls, and indoors in the winter, for boys.
There are a ton of different options for events during competitions as well. There are sprints, which include 50-yard freestyle, also known as crawl stroke, 100-yard freestyle, 100-yard backstroke, 100-yard breaststroke, and 100-yard butterfly. Then, there are the middle distance events, which are the 200 freestyle and the 200 individual medley, which is four 50s, one for each stroke. Also, my personal favorite is distance, which we only have the 500 freestyle, which is the longest you’ll ever swim in high school at a time. Finally, there are relays, which are when you take turns swimming as fast as you can with your teammates. There is the 200 freestyle relay, where each athlete swims a 50 free, the 200 medley relay, which is where each swimmer swims a 50 of a set stroke, and finally the 400 freestyle relay, which is where each swimmer does a 100 freestyle.
For practice, we practice with Chiawana’s swim team, and most likely with Sageview’s next year. Everyone on both teams are great and we always cheer each other on at competitions, even though we compete against each other, and we build a great community with each other. Practice is hard sometimes, but it is so fulfilling when you get a new best time due to the work you put into practice.
Currently, you might have noticed that there is construction at the Pasco pool, and that is because they are getting the pool ready for a bubble, a covering over the pool to keep the air warm, to be installed when winter is near, so the local swim teams have another place to practice. The bubble won’t only allow another practice place, very accessible to our team, but it will also allow us to have swim meets, competitions right by our home! This last season, the closest competition pool was in Walla Walla, but with the bubble, our meets will be right here, and it will make it much easier for students and parents to see what the swim team is all about.
Swimming is also a sport with a ton of health benefits that can also help with other sports. It will help you improve your muscle strength and endurance, and it also helps increase lung capacity. It is also a full-body workout and will work muscles in every part of your body, so it is a great second sport to add to any fall or spring sport you possibly participate in. In addition, swimming is easy on your joints, so it is a great sport for anyone to join!
You might say that you don’t know how to swim, so you can’t join, but that is not a problem. The first week of practice, our amazing coaches go over technique for each of the strokes, and they help anyone who is struggling with their knowledge of swimming, spanning many years. There might also be a summer swim camp, where more details will come later, so join! You will have one of the best experiences in all of high school.
