The Benilde-St. Margaret’s girls’ swim team is known for its competitiveness and success. With multiple pool records, standout swimmers, and appearances at the Girls Swimming and Diving State Championship, the program has built up a strong reputation. This season, however, the team has faced the challenge of losing several swimmers to college and other sports. Dropping from about 30 members to only 17, the team has had to adjust quickly.
With fewer athletes, the team struggles at times to fill all of the necessary events to compete. Swimmers often take on extra responsibility by participating in more events to cover the lineup. “We have barely enough people to fill all of [the events], so people have needed to do four events at a time, and it gets really chaotic, so that’s been hard to adjust to,” sophomore Myla Johnson said.
The team is also very young this year, which brings new challenges. With fewer upperclassmen drivers, transportation to practices is difficult. In past years, carpools of around three to four people were common, making transportation easy. Now, due to the shortage of drivers on the team, the school provides buses to get the team to pools around the St. Louis Park area where they practice. “It’s for people who can’t drive or don’t want to drive. And so it’s the sophomores and then a couple of younger people, and it just takes us to practice,” Johnson said.
Still, a young team has its benefits. Younger swimmers have the opportunity to look up to the few older role models, learn from them, and carry on team traditions in future years. With everyone pushing each other to improve, the group continues to advance and get better. “We’re a very young team as well, which is awesome, because we can all grow and develop together,” senior captain Anna Kelm said.
Another factor bringing the team closer is the change in practice structure. In previous years, swimmers were divided into short and long practices, which would split up JV and varsity, with varsity taking the long practices and JV in the short. This season, however, the two squads train together, allowing the JV athletes to push themselves alongside varsity swimmers. The shared practices not only raise the level of competition but also strengthen connections across the team. “I think it has challenged [swimmers] to work individually on their own strengths. Everyone’s asked to provide the same work effort and work ethic,” assistant coach Alena Paulson said.
The smaller roster has made the team feel even more like a family, fostering close relationships between upperclassmen and lowerclassmen. Due to these relationships, the team feels they can rely on each other for anything. “I think our bond has actually gotten stronger since we have fewer people. It’s easier to talk to everyone, I feel I have a good relationship with every single girl on the team, and I don’t think I could have said that last year,” Johnson said.
Throughout the season, that closeness has shown in meaningful ways. During the difficult time following the Annunciation shooting here in Minneapolis, the team was deeply affected. At practice that day, the team ended up stopping practice to process their feelings together. This event demonstrates how the team has grown closer and how their bond extends beyond the sport. “The fact that we could actually do that [stop practice] and cry together and just be together in sadness was really amazing,” Johnson said.
Along with building stronger connections, the team’s motivation and drive have only increased since their numbers dropped. Swimmers are more self-motivated to improve their times and compete against larger schools, all while leaning on each other for support. “Everyone’s been working really hard and really just having fun, having a good season,” sophomore Brooke Parry said.
The Red Knights continue to improve both individually and as a team despite their smaller numbers. With JV championships and Varsity sections just around the corner, BSM wishes the girls’ swim team the best of luck.