Author: Soo Jin Kim
With only a month left to go in the season, the Oxy Swim Team is still fired up and ready to go. Coach Peggy Carl and captains of both the men’s and women’s divisions are enthusiastic about what lies ahead. According to Carl, the team’s goal for this season is to take at least third place at the SCIAC championships, February 21-23.
Co-captain Dickson Fai (senior) believes that “this year was very tough year since [the team] lost a significant number of talented swimmers. Despite their struggles, Coach Carl has come up with a new training program to benefit the swimmers and make up for the ground they lost.
During the season, the swimmers were all engaged in both a dry-land program and swimming. At each practice, four or five days a week, swimmers first spend twenty minutes on medicine balls, stretching exercises and a special type of exercise training known as plyometrics. Plyometrics is designed to produce fast movements in the body, especially in the nervous system. An hour and a half to two hours of swimming follows this regimen.
The captains are calling their new training program a “revolution.” Carl explains that the new program is “more speed-orientated rather than aerobic.” She likens this to “sprinting compared to walking for miles.” The training, Fai says, “is a lot harder and more intense,” adding that, “the new revolution proves to be right; most swimmers are swimming better than [they did in] previous years.”
The team, according to Carl, is “really good and like-minded.” She adds that during the winter break, when the swimmers came back to train (they arrived back on campus January 1), they “went straight to work, instead of partying.” “It is a real pleasure to coach these kids,” she said.
Renae Rykaczewski, (senior) agrees with Carl. “The team has worked really hard this season and is really united and cohesive. There’s a high level of commitment to the sport and to our teammates, and we have a lot of fun,” Rykaczewski said.Co-captain Mike Heffner (senior) believes that this unity among swimmers is due to two factors: “The three weeks of ‘swim camp’…. And the rain!” he said. “The training is especially grueling during this time and as such, we rely on each other for support and motivation.” “[The swim team] is all aligned against a common enemy, the rain! Our pool is outside, and [so] we practice no matter [what] the weather conditions [may be],” Heffner said.
The Swimming and Diving team will be in action this weekend as the Tigers host the Sagehens of Pomona-Pitzer in what will be their last head-to-head meet of the season. From there the Tigers will get ready for the conference champion ships being held later on in the month.
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