The boys and girls swim teams are focused on improving the main strengths of their program this season. The girls’ team has a strong roster and is looking to get its relay team to the podium. The boys’ team, while small, has some strong individual swimmers.
Head coach Larry Hermida hopes for the girls’ team to place in the top four within the Portland Interscholastic League’s nine total teams. With 25 girls on the team, there is more potential for better individual swimmers and more depth on relay teams.
Senior Leah Kobak has been on the team since she was a freshman and is one of the girls’ captains. Her leadership with the team extends from practice to meets.
“I lead warm-ups and try to lift everybody’s spirit and be a friendly face for everyone on the team,” Kobak said.
Senior Gabe Holm, also in his fourth season, is expecting to be one of the boys captains even though a vote has not yet been held as of Dec. 17. He echoed what Kobak said about leadership responsibilities and added specific responsibilities like leading stretching and “dry land” exercises.
Holm prepared for the season during the summer by staying active with swimming through his job.
“Over the summer, I was lifeguarding, so I got free access to the pools,” Holm said. “I would use that time every now and then to get a couple laps in, just to stay warm and ready for the season.”
Hermida has worked with the team on getting the essentials of swimming and racing down, like being able to do dive starts and flipturns, and swim all four strokes (backstroke, front crawl, butterfly and breaststroke).
Later in the season, the swimmers will work on building their lungs up to be able to swim underwater for a certain amount of time, according to Hermida, and then mainly working on technique.
Since last season, the team has focused on bonding and strengthening their rapport.
“We did team bonding over the summer, like going to the river, and we’ve started doing more team bonding exercises every day,” Kobak said. “So we’re just increasing everyone’s friendship and happiness.”
Senior Gabe Holm added that the team hosts dinners before every meet and holds end-of-season celebrations.
“We went to Wings and Waves [Waterpark] last year. So the team, we do a lot of activities to bring us closer together,” he said. “There’s a lot of spirit here.”
Holm has a personal goal to set a PR in the backstroke, and to hit the 25- or 26- second mark in the 50-yard front crawl, or freestyle.
As for the boys team, Hermida made it clear that the boys team desperately needs more numbers.
“The goal is to bring up the numbers on the boys side from 12 to maybe 20,” he said.
Freshman Woodrow Marable was one swimmer who had a great night during the Dec. 3 opening season swim meet, held at Matt Dishman Community Center, against Benson, Roosevelt and Jefferson. He destroyed his time goals in the 200- and 500-yard freestyle events, swimming times of 3:28 and 9:39, respectively. With it being his first meet, his teammates were very congratulatory of his personal success.
Senior Tory Langlie swam a 33-second, 50-yard freestyle during the meet, two seconds from his personal best set last year at the district meet.
A few other swimmers to keep an eye on are Jered Holm, Miles Pitone, MacKenzie Guillet and Daisy Le’Engle, according to Holm and Kobak. Kobak adds that pretty much the whole girls team is very strong and should be on any fan’s radar this season.
Hermida encouraged anyone interested to join, saying there are still spots available on the team, especially for boys. The team practices Monday through Friday, from 6:45 p.m. to 8:15 p.m. at East Portland Community Center. Hermida says swimmers are expected to practice every day.
“They just need to talk to the athletic director to sign up on Arbiter [Sports]…we need more of the boys to show up,” he said.
