Swim team ends season with 7th place at GLIACs
Charger swimmers conclude season at Indianapolis with a new school record, career bests
Nick Tabor
Issue date: 2/21/08 Section: Sports
The Hillsdale College swim team returned home with a new school record, a handful of lifetime best times, and a seventh place finish in last week's nine-team GLIAC Championship held in Indianapolis.
Sophomore Cassie Nielsen said the team felt satisfied with their performance, though the team pulled off a sixth place finish last year.
"I think we did overall as we'd expected," she said. "We wanted to do better than sixth, but coming into it, I think we all realized the conference was faster this year."
Nielsen said she didn't have any regrets about their preparations.
"I think we were all right on," she said. "I think our coach trained us the way we needed to be trained."
Head coach Kurt Kirner said sophomore Meredith Scott, who took second in the 200-yard breaststroke and fourth in the 100 breaststroke, inspired the whole team.
The 200-medley relay team composed of freshman Alicia LeDuc, sophomore Meredith Scott, Nielsen and junior Anne Verhoef set a new school record with a time of 1:50.86. The previous record was 1:51.64.
Other highlights include Verhoef's sixth place finish in the 100 freestyle and junior Charlotte Wolfe's scores in one-meter and three-meter diving. In last year's championship meet, Wolfe scored in the 240 point range on both. This year she topped off at 287.15 on the one-meter and 327.20 on the three-meter.
This meet marked the end of their first season with Kirner as new head coach.
Freshman Alison Roberts said the team needed a season to adapt to Kirner's coaching methods.
"We adjusted well to having a new coach and a different type of training," she said. "Now we know how he coaches, we know how we're gonna practice, and we know we can do well under that."
Kirner said he's proud of the progress the team has made thus far.
"I wanted to change the mentality - how they go into meets, how they prepare for meets," he said. "I feel like we took a good step toward that direction."
He said he trains each season's freshmen to think a certain way, as the rest of the team has become accustomed to it. But since he started coaching at a new school, he's had a whole team to re-train.
"I didn't want to throw a whole bunch of things at them at once," he said. "I feel like we still have a way to go in terms of our thinking: not getting down on ourselves, not looking at the other teams as being bigger and better than us."
The team will have a two-week break before starting off-season training.
Kirner said this program won't involve swimming, just aerobic and muscle training.
"When they commit to a sport, it's not just a 20-24 week season," he said.
He said he plans to incorporate drills next year that he didn't think the girls were ready to perform this year.
"We've come a long way," he said. "It was a successful learning process, to say the least."
Sophomore Cassie Nielsen said the team felt satisfied with their performance, though the team pulled off a sixth place finish last year.
"I think we did overall as we'd expected," she said. "We wanted to do better than sixth, but coming into it, I think we all realized the conference was faster this year."
Nielsen said she didn't have any regrets about their preparations.
"I think we were all right on," she said. "I think our coach trained us the way we needed to be trained."
Head coach Kurt Kirner said sophomore Meredith Scott, who took second in the 200-yard breaststroke and fourth in the 100 breaststroke, inspired the whole team.
The 200-medley relay team composed of freshman Alicia LeDuc, sophomore Meredith Scott, Nielsen and junior Anne Verhoef set a new school record with a time of 1:50.86. The previous record was 1:51.64.
Other highlights include Verhoef's sixth place finish in the 100 freestyle and junior Charlotte Wolfe's scores in one-meter and three-meter diving. In last year's championship meet, Wolfe scored in the 240 point range on both. This year she topped off at 287.15 on the one-meter and 327.20 on the three-meter.
This meet marked the end of their first season with Kirner as new head coach.
Freshman Alison Roberts said the team needed a season to adapt to Kirner's coaching methods.
"We adjusted well to having a new coach and a different type of training," she said. "Now we know how he coaches, we know how we're gonna practice, and we know we can do well under that."
Kirner said he's proud of the progress the team has made thus far.
"I wanted to change the mentality - how they go into meets, how they prepare for meets," he said. "I feel like we took a good step toward that direction."
He said he trains each season's freshmen to think a certain way, as the rest of the team has become accustomed to it. But since he started coaching at a new school, he's had a whole team to re-train.
"I didn't want to throw a whole bunch of things at them at once," he said. "I feel like we still have a way to go in terms of our thinking: not getting down on ourselves, not looking at the other teams as being bigger and better than us."
The team will have a two-week break before starting off-season training.
Kirner said this program won't involve swimming, just aerobic and muscle training.
"When they commit to a sport, it's not just a 20-24 week season," he said.
He said he plans to incorporate drills next year that he didn't think the girls were ready to perform this year.
"We've come a long way," he said. "It was a successful learning process, to say the least."
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