New leadership and strong chemistry look to propel swim & dive

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Morgan Dreese

Seniors Curtis Colvin and Ethan Ball cheer on his teammates in a home meet. The Bucs return their core pieces this year and are gearing up for a run to states.

Macayla Cramer, Reporter

The boys swim and dive team is back in the water again. This season the team is already hitting some rough waters from setbacks in practice with a broken pump in the pool.

However, the team team having to recover and regroup from losing their excellent talent in the last year’s seniors bunch. Yet, this year’s seniors Jackson Hamm and Chris Akselberg are not only looking promising in the leadership and competition categories, but some underclassmen are predicted to race and dive in those higher level positions.

“We’ve always had a pretty good swim team, but the dive team has been lacking. I think the divers this year are pretty good, so hopefully, we can score those points in diving which we were needing.” junior Jack Stork said.

Doug Throne will be the head coach again for this season. The team responds as well as can be expected to Thorne’s intensive training program to get these guys in shape for the upcoming season.

“Training gets us ready, Doug [head coach] tells us ‘to climb the mountain, the more yards you put in now the more you have to take from the bank later during the season’” Stork said.

This team has really built a strong foundation around team camaraderie, known for their diverse bunch and to improve their skill as a whole but also creating strong relationships.

“Everybody supporting everyone. Making sure everyone is within a relatively similar skill. Those that need help, get help. And those that have all the help, are good enough can help everyone else.” Stork said. “As a team, we are sorta a family. I think the family we created is a relatively good reputation of what we need.”

This team is ready to start the season off strong and fast, improve the spots they’ve been weak in the past, such as dive, and improve and fight for their goal this season.

“Make it to states. Obviously, win states. That’s always the goal, right?” Stork said.