A Slightly Unexpected Successful Swim Season
Photo provided by Emma Hartman.
Swim Season Update
The Menomonee Falls-Hamilton girl’s swim and dive team made quite a splash in their 2019 season. Before the season started, both coaches that had been with the team for almost 5 years had to make the tough choice not to coach for the 2019 season. This was devastating news for a lot of the girls, and some weren’t sure if they would even join the team for the 2019 season. One of the boys’ coaches stepped in to help the team, and a new coach was hired just before the start of the season. However, this new coach was removed due to complications, leaving the team with just one unofficial coach.
The season officially started at the beginning of August, and long practices with intense sets and workouts got the girls ready for competitions later in the season. “After relaxing all summer, drylands and swimming were tough to get back into at first,” said team member Sarah Onysio. The girls’ first meet was in August against West Bend, and even with the rocky and inconsistent coaching for the team, the junior varsity girls ending up winning all but one of their meets. Parties, team lunches, pasta dinners, and the long, tough practices were able to bring the team together and help them be supportive of each other.
When asked if she thought that the coaching crisis had any benefits, Onysio said, “I think that we had to make more decisions as a team and work together more as a team to get through the beginning of the season… We had to take care of each other because at first there wasn’t a supportive coach to do that for us.” Mia Ragowski also felt that not having a coach might have helped the team, stating, “it made us rely on each other instead of a coach as we could in the past, and that might have made us grow closer together.”
However, not all girls agree with this. Some felt less connected than they had in the past years, especially the seniors who had been through multiple seasons. “I didn’t really feel a difference in the team as far as how close we were. I kind of felt like we were closer in past years because [our old coach] took more time to make sure we were really a team,” reported Jenny Spence, a senior. Another senior, Brooke Hartman, commented, “This is the least close it’s ever been.”
Regardless of the contrasting opinions on team bonding and closeness, the girls all agreed on one thing: their accomplishments made during a season that started off with a coaching crisis were huge. “I feel that despite the fact that we basically had zero coaches, our season was very successful. JV won conference for the fifth year in a row and varsity got second place, which is pretty good considering who we were up against,” said Hartman.
By about the middle of the season, a coach fully committed to the junior varsity team. She brought fun and excitement to practices and greatly helped the JV team prepare for conference, their final meet. On October 19, the junior varsity girls had their conference meet at Brookfield East High School. Their coach surprised them with a gift of swim caps with pumpkin faces. Conference was then jokingly dubbed, “The Great Pumpkin Race.” When asked what she thought when she first saw the amusing caps, Onysio said, “I loved them! It was fun. It was different than usual, which made it more exciting.”
The JV girls swam their hearts out and managed to win conference. This was a relief to many because some were beginning to fear that they weren’t as ready as past seasons. Onysio also commented, “I was happy that we kept our winning streak and that it turned out well despite the troubles at the beginning.” The season ended with a great climax, and the girls were able to hold their winning place even after such a crazy season. Mia Ragowski said that after the final meet was over she felt, “an immediate rush of pride and happiness because we won and did well, but it was quickly followed by a bit of sadness because conference meant the end of the season and the end of seeing all my friends every day.”
The girls celebrated the end of their eventful season with a well-deserved team party, along with a banquet in December. Jenny Spence concluded the season well by saying, “Overall, the season was a roller coaster. There were fun parts and hard parts and parts where we didn’t know what was happening.” The Junior Varsity swimmers managed to stay strong and work hard throughout the hectic season. They made a powerful final stroke to reach their ultimate goal: not only winning conference but winning it together as a team.
