It's Christmas Time!!!

Merry Christmas!!!! I can’t believe it’s that time of year already! This swimming season has just flown by and it’s been awhile since we’ve been on here – so I’ll try to catch everyone up on all that’s been happening! The semester has been done now for about a week and the girls are all home for Christmas break; and believe me, after finals, it’s a well deserved break! We’ve all worked hard both in and out of the pool and so some rest, relaxation, and family time will hopefully refresh the girls so they can come back ready for the new year! Just after the new year we’ll hit our training at it’s peak, as we head down to Islamorada, Florida for our annual training trip. There we’ll get in some major yards as we swim two-a-days in a long course meter pool! It’s outside and we’re hoping for great weather! We’ll tell you more about it when we return in January. For now though, the girls are expected to swim on their own over break to stay in shape – otherwise this trip could be a little rough! ;)

Our hard work in the water has certainly paid off in the meets that we’ve swam in. Our first meet, the Augsburg Pentathalon went really well as did the Tommie Relay meet at the end of October. Our team really showed the strength we had at both meets. Right before the Relay meet we had our annual Halloween practice where everyone showed up in costume and then swam a length of the pool! We had some great costumes this year: winning first place were a pair of oompa loompas – complete with the song; we also had a mad scientist and egor, crayons, and many other creative costumes! As well...our sister sport Cross Country had their MIAC championship over the halloween weekend, so we headed over to Como Park after the Relay meet and cheered on the runners!!

The first part of November we headed up to Moorhead to race Concordia. We won 12 of the 16 events with Bridget Perkins and Steffanie Jurusik each winning three! Our relays did well as did our divers! Sarah Moody won both the 6 and 11 dive events off the 1 meter board.

That next week we headed to Macalester for the fifth annual Hour of Power event. We teamed up with Hamline, Augsburg, and Macalester to swim relay-style for an hour in honor of Ted Mullin, a Carleton College student-athlete who passed away from sarcoma in 2006. It was a great experience and we got to know some more of the swimmers from the other teams. At the end of the week we hosted a meet racing Hamline, Augsburg, Macalester, and Gustavus. Again we had strong swims by all the girls and our divers did very well too leading to a second place finish to Gustavus! Right before Thanksgiving we headed over to the Macalester invite where we again placed second - to St. Thomas. Steffanie set two meet records and Sarah Moody won the 3 meter and was second in the 1 meter diving events.

At Thanksgiving we got a little break, but with the anticipation of our last meet our coaches kept us working hard. Our last meet we swam at the St. Thomas invite where we saw many great swims! Many of the girls got their conference cuts, and Lena Anderson had season best times! We finished third to LaCrosse and St. Thomas.

That ended our competition until after our training trip in January when we’ll be dualing St. Thomas a few days after we return from Florida!

We've also been doing some fundraising - thanks to Marissa's mom at a Byerly's gift basket shop. We help out making baskets and other odd jobs in the store! We appreciate the support and have had a lot of fun helping out!

So…that’s our season in a little wrap up for now! We wish you a Merry Christmas and Blessings in the new year!!