By Adriana Moreno, staff writer
The boys swim and dive team at Indian Trail High School & Academy is doing well this season, with swimmers working hard to do better after every meet and practice. Their goal is to provide every member an opportunity to improve swimming and diving skills and achieve success at their ability level.
Even though this year’s team is fairly small, members keep trying to better themselves and achieve their goals as a whole.
Thomas Sallese, an IT senior, shows excitement and keeps trying hard to get far this season with the help of his teammates.
“The season has been very fun but very hard because we have such a small team that it’s really difficult to do well in every meet. We are all spread so thin between all the events. Considering the difficulties, we have done really well,” Sallese said.
This year, the swim and dive team only has nine members, but the team still has goals that they wish to achieve. David Nauman, an IT junior, has a goal set for himself as well.
“My major accomplishment was going under a minute for the 100 freestyle and my goal I’m still trying to get is going under two minutes for the 200 freestyle,” said Nauman.
Sallese also has a goal set for himself that he wants to achieve this year as a senior.
“My biggest accomplishment this season has to be breaking the 30-second mark on my 53 and my goal is to hopefully make it to conference,” said Sallese.
With a team so small, it makes it a challenge to compete with other schools, but the team doesn’t give up.
“This sport is both individual and a team sport, but it’s more individual considering that you’re racing to get first and you build up points for your team by what place you get,” said Nauman.
“It is definitely a lot more difficult to compete with other schools like Park, Oak Creek or Bradford when they have about 30 swimmers and we have nine,” said Sallese. “This sport is a little of both because you have to beat your own personal record but also all your times are compiled as a team in a point system which decides the winner and the loser.”
Although this year’s season has been more difficult than past years, both Sallese and Nauman believe that there is always going to be something to work on to keep getting better.
“A lot more swimmers would help us to get better, otherwise maybe swimming for longer periods of time or practicing flip turns,” said Sallese.
“Honestly there isn’t anything that we haven’t done, but with practice we will get better. We’re all just one big family and it has really been fun hanging out with the swim team and bettering ourselves,” said Nauman.