Jena Whalen
Equinox Staff
As the end of the year sneaks closer and closer, it is time to start cracking down on prepping and training for the upcoming nationals and the championship tournaments.
Derek Peabody, a senior here at Keene State College and a member of the KSC swim team as a diver, explains, “It’s my last meet this weekend so I’m just looking to finish strong. I’m already happy with everything I have accomplished in my diving career, so this weekend will hopefully just be the exclamation point. The month of training in between each meet hasn’t changed much.”
Peabody continued, “I just am focusing on the dives I have to perform and present them the best I can for the meet, no longer looking to learn any new dives.”
Throughout the entire year the swimmers have to do well in every meet in order to qualify for the championship and national tournaments.
Assistant Coach Katie Allenson claims, “Everyone on the team has qualified for the NEISDA meet. It’s a team championship. Also for DIII Nationals we already have one qualifier.”
The coaches for this team are confident in their swimmers to qualify for each tournament.
A sophomore swimmer Lianna Wissmann said, “The upcoming swim meet is the New England Championship and it’s our final meet of the season. Personally I want to get best times in my events, as well as, have the whole team do well.”
Wissmann continued, “Our goal is to win the meet overall. The last two weeks we have gone into a training regimen known as ‘taper’ which means lower yardage but still high intensity work outs. This is proven to ‘rest’ us a little bit so that we swim fast next weekend.”
A new workout and training schedule will help the team succeed in the upcoming meets and hopefully for next season will be a new routine.
A sophomore, also the manager for the team last season said, “I think the team will do really well. The team looks very strong and one of the freshmen seems to be accumulating many achievements. Compared to last year, I feel that the entire team will do well. There are a lot of new swimmers on the girls’ team and still a lot of younger swimmers on the men’s team. It will be interesting to see how the outcome turns out.”
Austin Harris, a junior and a freestyle/butterfly swimmer on the team, said, “This meet is the biggest meet out of the year. This is where best times are met and national cuts are usually made. My hopes for this meet are to qualify the 400 and 800 free relays for NCAA nationals in Indianapolis, and win my events. Our preparation and training does change as we get closer towards this specific meet [New England’s].”
Harris continued, “We start to taper. We worked a lot on endurance training over all winter break down in Florida and now there is a large focus on speed and power work, less yardage of actual swimming but a higher intensity. We also work on dry land training. Lifting, abs, and boxing mostly for sprinters and distance keep up yardage.”
As the tournaments come closer, the team will have to work harder than they ever have during the normal season.
It’s about the way they train and work as a team that will show in their results in the end.
Jena Whalen can be contacted at jwhalen@ksc.mailcruiser.com