Sierra Vista High School’s swim and dive team approaches the end of yet another season with success after success yet again. The team managed to send multiple athletes to regionals as a result of their accomplished season. Besides the team’s growing skill, they offer a great team dynamic and hope to grow their team in numbers in future years.
The 2024 season was filled with numerous successes, Heather Kolb, one of the head coaches of Sierra Vistas swim and dive team explains, “Girls were 2:2 boys were 1:3, we ended up going to regionals.” Mikel Boland, the head coach of ten years elaborates, “swimming is kind of interesting because we don’t worry much about our win loss record but we are in a very good place in terms of going to regionals.” Overall, ten girls and eight boys on the team qualified for regionals. Boland further states “Doral, Red Rock, and Legacy High School will be our biggest competition at regionals.”
Sierra Vista High School’s swim and dive team offers much to students considering joining. The team offers opportunities to improve in new skills such as swimming, but also offers a positive environment and opportunities for student athletes to work as a team. In terms of joining the team for the first time Kolb explains the requirements necessary to join the team, “I hope they (students) would come and give it a try and we have a test of skill at the beginning and do a lot of training and teaching at the beginning. You don’t need to have previous experience, you just need to swim and we are hoping to build our team up.” Zinnia Zhang, a senior on the Sierra Vista team shares her advice when joining the team, “communicate with people, communicate with your coaches, fellow athletes, they’re all super nice.”Boland further explains, “it’s a lot of fun but it’s a lot of work. We swim back and forth, that’s what we do for practice… It’s good for you and we’re willing to work with you and try to develop new swimmers… as long as you’re not going to sink to the bottom of the pool feel free to come out and we’ll try to train you up from there.” The team offers over eight events available to students interested in competing including the 200 meter freestyle and 100 meter butterfly.
Besides the work that swim and dive entails, the team offers a great support system and an exceptional team dynamic outside of the water. Zheng shares her experience, “You might think that there’s no teamwork required, but a lot of our swimmers actually engage a lot with one another, in both swim comp and outside.” Lauren Grobel (9), further explains “It’s a really good community and a really good sport and is good to train for other sports.” The team’s community allows many swimmers to revive their passion for the sport and helps them remember why they began in the first place. Grobel goes on to explain, “I think our passion for swimming is what holds us together and helps us work together for relays and helps us cheer for each other in races… this team made me realize how much I still love swimming.” Zheng elaborates, “the team allowed me to better engage with other fellow students of different grades and understand how different people act. Of course, it also helped me improve my swimming as it is not just for fun but it is also a survival skill to have.”
As Sierra Vista High Schools swim and dive team approaches regionals and ends their season they continue to work hard and improve for future seasons. The team continues to bond and build their dynamic, further preparing them for seasons ahead.
Brecken Jaeger • Sep 27, 2024 at 9:34 pm
The boys won state