Women's Swimming Making a Splash

Upon walking into the pool at the Nelson field house the musky smell of chlorine hits you upon opening the front doors. The Bloomsburg University Women's Swim Team, comprised of 25 talented young women, have proved that they all deserve a spot on this competitive Varsity team. The Men and Women's head coach Stu Marvin who stands 6 feet tall with a thin frame and encouraging smile from ear to ear, and also alumni to the bloomsburg swim team, has lead these devoted women to a so far undefeated season of 7-0. These ladies could be the only team to come close to this goal since the 1978-1979 team. With their team goal in mind, these ladies could become only the second team ever in Bloomsburg Swimming History to finish a regular season undefeated. 

Sitting on deck at the pool, taking in the scenery, a banner on the second level that reads "Club Stu. Its all about you!" along with some well used, rusty, gym equipment that you could hear clanking in the background. Maroon and gold streamers and balloons hanging from he balcony overlooking the crystal blue pool, along with 8 posters all decorated for a different senior who will be graduating at the end of the spring semester. The lights shine bright and the music plays loud, making for a motivating environment. A white board next to the pool reads "21 days until PSACS!" A huge hanging banner reading "Bloomsburg University Huskies Swimming" serves as the focal piece of the pool.

Lauren Minford a brown haired, cheery, well built, muscular freshman who is a distance swimmer walks into the pool. As we begin talking she informs me that "Stu has worked so hard to build up this team and it is really paying off." However she also adds "its not just natural talent that leads us where we are. Every girl on this team works hard at every practice, everyday." The women take this knowledge, that they need to put in hard work, into every practice.

The combined Men and Women's team, who practice together, total roughly 60 swimmers. It takes 3 different practices to fit them all into the pool comfortably. Minford informs us that "Our practices are split up into sprint group and distance group". She also says "Our practices are specific to the events that we swim." If a sprinter did a distance practice it would not be very beneficial and the same goes for a distance swimmer doing a sprint practice. "All practices are well thought out in order for each swimmer to get the most out of every workout." In the morning the team's both arrive at the pool at 6:30am to lift weights and do dryland workouts. Both sprint and distance groups come together in the mornings to build the necessary muscles needed to pull their bodies through the water efficiently.

A typical morning practice is composed of either a 17 station dryland circuit or an hour and a half swim workout depending on the day. The team's circuit works on many if not all of the muscle groups necessary for swimming. The circuit contains exercises from planks to boxing with a punching bag to benchpress and other weight lifting exercises.  "Morning swim workouts are tough because we cram a lot of yards into a short amount of rest, so we don't get much rest in between sets" Lauren declares grabbing her arm as if in pain. After morning practice and a day crammed with classes and studying, these swimmers still have one more practice to look forward to but not before they are split up into their designated groups.

A distance swimmer is an individual who swims the longer events in meets. Meaning "Anything over a 200. So a 500,1000,1650 free and 400 IM." In order to be able to complete these events you have to have stronger shoulder, arm and leg muscles than a typical sprinter because they use these muscles for a much longer period of time. For this reason, distance group or "D-crew" as they nicknamed themselves, has to "swim mostly freestyle", or front crawl as many know it. Along with this, distance group does a lot of what they call "pull". They put a special shaped buoy between their legs that helps them float. With this the swimmer uses only their arm muscles to pull themselves through the water, without using their legs to kick. This helps them build their arms and shoulders muscles. "To strengthen our legs we do a lot of kicking  because when we are swimming a mile which is 66 laps, our arms get a little tired as you can imagine and we have to rely on our legs to take some of the pressure off of our arms". While Distance group pounds out yards at every practice, sprint group trains in a slightly different manor.

A sprinter is considered a swimmer who swims 200's and below of any stroke. For this I talked to sophomore Marykate Boylan, a lean muscular 100 and 50 freestyler. Boylan admits "being a sprinter has much more to do with technique than anything else. Being aware of body position is one of the keys to efficiency." Sprinters tend to be very technically aware because they don't have much time to fix something if they mess up during a swim. "We swim for 4 laps as opposed to 66. If we make a mistake it is harder to recover from it in that short of a time." A typical sprint practice involves a lot of fast swimming with little rest in between swims. "While we might be swimming half the yards that distance group does, we are still getting out butts kicked everyday." All of the hard work from both distance and spring group pays off when it comes meet time.

At swim meets both distance and sprint groups come together under the goal in front of them, to post best times and bring home a win. Swim meets are set up in the way that every event must be swam and every swimmer must swim at least 1 event but no more than 4 events. There are also high pressure and intensity relays at the beginning and the end. Lauren pleasantly states "At meets you will never see anyone sitting down or being distracted by anything. We are all cheering trusting that the hard work we have put into practices pays off with a win." Coach Stu enforces strongly the positive environment on the pool deck. "Stu tells us that during practice its all about hard work and pushing each other but at meets its all about attitude" Lauren tells me, which is a far cry from her High School team coach who's attitude screamed I don't want to be here! "This is because on the pool deck emotions are high and it is easy to feed off of each others energy and vibes, good or bad" Boylan exclaimed smiling, knowing that the Huskies do an excellent job of enforcing a positive attitude. The womens team pulls together to enforce the positive attitude surrounding them by cheering and supporting their fellow team mates. Marykate grinning says "As much as people think swimming is an individual sport, its also a team sport. It would be hard to do any of this without teammates who push you in practice and cheer for you during meets. on the outside it looks like an individual sport, but on the inside its much more than that."

These ladies have clearly been working hard for many months, starting their season in late September, and practicing twice a day 5-6 times a week. Their hard work and drive has lead the way to an undefeated season so far and with a PSAC win in their grasp, these ladies are hoping to reach out and grab a well deserved victory. In order for everything to fall into place they must have a good attitude come meet time and let their hard work show.