Although team unity and confidence are key this season, swim team feels strains in bid for another State title

By Maggie Brandenburg
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With the state tournament starting with their Sectional meet tomorrow, it is officially go time for the women’s swim team. With the ever present pressure from being the 23rd team in 22 State title streak program increasing with each step the team takes toward the State title meet, the women must keep up the momentum they have gained over the course of their regular season and their recent Metro

politan Interscholastic Championship (MIC) win.

“It’s reassuring when you are going fast times, and (previous meets) it just reassures me that I’m ready for what’s coming up,” Rhi Sheets, varsity swimmer and sophomore, said of the momentum the team has coming in the Sectional meet.

According to Head Coach Chris Plumb, the recent MIC competition has a very similar feel to State meets and can only give the team more confidence heading into the Sectional meet at Noblesville High School.

Plumb said, “The MIC meet has a very championship type atmosphere to it with the crowd, and with the teams, so being successful there will help us be successful later in other meets.”

The Greyhounds have high expectations entering the Sectional meet at Noblesville, and according to Plumb, the team’s goal is to “do awesome,” and in order to do that, he said he isn’t worried about any other team than his own and making sure they perform their best.

“Winning is always a really good feeling. It’s just kind of like a snowball rolling down a hill, it just keeps getting bigger,” Logan Mason, varsity swimmer and senior, said.

When it comes to the pressure put on the team and its coaches to obtain the women’s swimming program’s 23rd State title, both Mason and Sheets agreed that there is a lot riding on the shoulders of this year’s team to keep the tradition going, and while Mason prefers to face the pressure with a positive attitude, Sheets tries to not think about it too much. She said, “I use (the pressure) to motivate me, but then, if I think about it too much, it gets me really nervous, and I try to just not think about it and just think about what I really have to do and that’s just go out there and race.”

As the team nears its chance at continuing its streak, the pressure does not solely lie on the athletes themselves, the coaching staff always feels the pressure just as much as their athletes or even more in some cases to make sure their teams perform to the best of their ability. And while many coaches could crack under that pressure, Plumb sees it a different way than most would.

Plumb said, “We don’t view it as pressure, we view it as support. There’s 22 years of girls behind us cheering us on, creating that tradition and we just view it as our job to continue that tradition of excellence.”

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STATE DOMINANCE
Different 2008 to 2009 athletics awards

MIC Championship Teams
Men’s Cross-Country
Men’s Tennis
Football
Women’s Cross-Country
Women’s Golf
Women’s Soccer

IHSAA State Finalists
Women’s Golf – 9th Place

State Championship Teams
Men’s Cross-Country
Women’s Cross-Country