By: Saziye Gourley-Ozhayta Photo by: Cory Cooper
The water buffaloes are approaching the finish line after competing in the Appalachian Swim Conference (ASC) meet this past weekend.
Head Swim Coach RC Weston said, “I am extremely pleased with the way each and every one of my swimmers performed over the weekend. Everyone on this team dropped time and hit a season best in at least one of their events.”
Becoming the new head coach mid-season, you would think that there might have been a lack of confidence, but not for Coach Weston.
“It has been quite the transition only taking the program over at the beginning of the year, but for the most part, everyone has adjusted well,” Weston said. “The level of training that this team was accustomed to was not where I had expected. We changed the focus and really started to see how each individual needs to do their part for the overall success of the team.”
Weston was also pleased with the how the team competed during the conference season. “At conference we broke 16 School Records. This is truly an amazing accomplishment. Of the 22 swimmers eligible, we will be taking 16 of them to Nationals next week to compete for the individual events in which they qualified, as well as all of the team relays.”
With a great turnout from each of the swimmers, school records were broken.
Sophomore swimmer Katryn McKinney finished fifth in the 500 freestyle with a school record of 5:23.73.
“It was encouraging to see hard work pay off,” McKinney said. “I think overall the meet was very successful.”
Freshman swimmer Adam Motter from Hudson, Ohio, set a school record of 2:03.81 in the 200 Fly as well as a 52.52 100 fly back in November.
Motter said, “I wasn’t expecting to even swim the 200 fly this year, let alone break the record. So I was also very happy and surprised about that as well.”
Motter said, “Training hard with our coaches Jes Sutton and R.C. Weston is what I believe helped me reach my goals. Having R.C. come in as a new coach benefitted me tremendously especially during our resting period before conference. I would like to swim faster in my events at nationals and drop even more time next season. All it takes is lots of time and practice in and out of the pool this summer and next season with Milligan.”
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