SARAH AMENY
During our winter training trip, our coach told us: “Rent is due every day. We don’t own a championship title forever, or any records or any NCAA cuts. We’re renting them, and we need to pay up in practice every single day.”
Both the men’s and women’s teams put in so much work this season. We created bigger goals than ever before, so we trained harder than ever before. Once it was time for conference and we were shaved and tapered, the energy of the team was electric.
Everyone had an extra pep in their step, and we all had the desire to kick ass. Each team member came together to fight for the same goal.
We knew individually what needed to be done to reach that team goal, and everyone was behind it all the way.
We’ve been building up to this weekend since the first day of practice way back in September. The Conference meet goes by so quickly that it’s hard to put into words a
ll of the emotions that we feel.
We put so much pressure on ourselves to perform well this weekend; so much mental energy is spent trying to visualize the perfect race and remind ourselves of our goals.
Championships are won in the morning. The nerves of prelims were getting to us a bit, but we wanted so badly to show our depth in finals. During prelims, we have to swim fast and put ourselves in a great position to score at finals that night. At finals, our only goal was to go fast and beat somebody. The entire team was up and cheering on the bulkhead for every race, and the energy on deck was pumping us up.
One of the best feelings is watching a teammate smash a record or go a best time or out touch someone in a finish right before you get up behind the blocks.
After the final relay on Sunday night, Coach brought the whole team into a huddle and started tearing up. He told us how proud he was of both teams and that this year we pulled off something amazing.
The men’s team had no idea that, at the beginning of the season, they could fight for second without a full squad.
Hearing that from our coach made us feel so proud of ourselves and our teammates.
The men’s team came together to battle for second place. The women’s team dominated the meet, wrapping up an undefeated season and winning our third straight Conference title. Both teams smashed records and put up an impressive number of NCAA ‘B’ cuts.
One of our team sayings is, “We’re like a freight train. You can’t stop us, you can only hope to contain us.”
But the rest of the conference couldn’t even hope to contain us this year.
