A Meet to Remember

December 7, 2012 Lynn Tay Comments Off

The crowd is going wild. Cheering fills the air, and all I can hear is "go, go, go" reverberating through the air of the pool. Swimmers from all four teams line the sides of the pool, their arms flailing frantically in the air, pushing on their fellow teammates. One lap of freestyle left to go, and all six girls are head-to-head as they approach the last fifteen yards of the race. They touch the wall, and all heads turn to look at the scoreboard. A loud applause and a scream of cheers erupt from the Wagner swimmers, divers, and parents. Wagner swept the 200 freestyle event with three girls coming in first, second, and third place.

200 Freestyle Winners. From left to right: juniors Sarah Menendez, Meredith Ketchmark, and Alexandra Cooney, sweeping first, second, and third places during finals Saturday night.

This weekend, the Wagner Swimming and Diving team traveled to Central Connecticut State University (CCSU) to compete in their annual winter invitational. The Wagner team finished second place overall, falling short of a first place win by a little less than 100 points behind University of Vermont. Our team beat the CCSU team by a landslide. The last time Wagner College has defeated CCSU in a swim meet was in 2003, but that changed this weekend with a ton of great swims and amazing team spirit.

Team Spirit — The team cheering Alex Cooney on during her mile race.

It has been a tough season for our team, with long weeks of grueling practices, lack of sleep, a week of training lost from the devastation of Hurricane Sandy, all while balancing school and enduring many dual meet losses. Despite all of these challenges, our team has pushed through, and we got to see how all of our hard work has been worth it. Our team broke five pool records at CCSU this weekend, along with three Wagner school records. The divers had very good dives, and Erica Curry won the 3 meter boards at this meet as well.

Erica being introduced — Erica Curry, winner of the 3 meter diving, is introduced to the crowd.

Divers supporting Erica — The other three divers on the team, cheering Erica on.

Our team went home with broad smiles all the way. We even made a team stop at Cold Stone Creamery in celebration of our great meet! A big thank you to our new team trainer, Josh, for calling the Cold Stone of Danbury, Connecticut to stay open a little later so that our team could celebrate and revel in our accomplishments of the weekend. We will be entering a new phase of training and begin preparations for the Northeast Conference meet at the end of February. On January 1^st, our team will be heading to Coral Springs, Florida for a week-long training trip to get our tan on and train hard.