Fall sports have officially come to an end which means it is now time for winter sports. Students of all grades here at LHS will be attending all of the exciting events, whether it’s basketball, a bowling match, or a swim meet. The Lakewood High School swim team consists of lots of very driven and hardworking students who enjoy competitive swimming. Meets are normally on a Tuesday night and the team has constant practice throughout the week to prepare. There is morning and night practice depending on whether the swimmer is on varsity or junior varsity, plus lifting and weekend practice. These students are constantly in the water working on their technique and endurance to improve their score for the next upcoming meet.
I recently spoke with some team members to see their views on what they think the team is about and how they work. First I spoke with Sistina Simcox asking a few questions about her definition of a swim meet and how scoring works. She describes a meet as “A team coming together and cheering each other on through a stressful time and forming a bond of encouragement.”, this quote really shows that it’s not just the competition that can be important, cheering your friends on and creating a close relationship will improve that drive. I was also quite curious about how scoring works, most sports have scoring based off of throwing a ball into a goal or basket of some sort, but swimming depends on the events swam. Some popular events for swimmers according to another LHS swimmer, Savannah Hanna, are “100 Freestyle, 200IM, 500 Freestyle, 100 Fly, and 100 Backstroke.”, these different events are taken as placements for each team and then are added together for a final score.
The team has started off the season at a rough start with scoring 77 to 110 for varsity girls and 73 to 104 for varsity boys, but will be back better than ever at their next meet! Overall swimming is a tough sport, it takes a lot of hard work, determination, and time. Lakewood High is lucky enough to be filled with such students.
