The Benilde-St. Margaret’s Boys Swim and Dive team is off to a great start this season, overcoming adversity and pushing to do better than last season. The season started in November and is coming to an end with sections this coming week. The swim and dive team lost six seniors from last season and had to work hard to make up for its losses. The team has four new swimmers who have been working hard to make up for the talented swimmers who graduated.
Luis Smith is a sophomore on the swim and dive team and thinks the program has a bright future despite the challenges it has faced, such as losing multiple seniors. So far this season, many people have broken their personal records and have gotten much faster. Smith feels that with continued hard work, many swimmers will make it to state this season. “This year has been a little bit harder because we had a lot of seniors last year that graduated, and some of our best swimmers have left, but the team’s picking itself back up… The goal that we have is for many swimmers to make it to state,” Smith said.
The team has seen much of this improvement due to its connection with each other. Even though swimming and diving are often seen as individual sports, training together as a team makes a huge difference and pushes each member to be his best. They also have team bonding activities to bring the team together and ensure everyone, even the new swimmers, feels a part of the team. They often have team bonding the night before every meet, getting together for a pasta dinner. “Team meals help us get the morale up, [and] get us ready for the meet,” sophomore Quinn Speltz said.
With the loss of some senior leadership, many people have been asked to step up and take on leadership roles. Senior captain Ari Sellers has done a great job leading the team to its success thus far. “Sellers does all the things a great captain is supposed to do, but also much more. He is one of the main reasons we’ve seen such improvement this season. He leads by example and helps us stay focused on our goals,” said Speltz.