Friday, January 28, 2011

Goodbye J-Term



At last the day has come, no more J-Term. Our month long break of not having classes is over and we start back up again on Monday. It has been a lot of fun over the last few weeks just having practice and meets on the weekends. The swim team finished out our break with another trip to Feed My Starving Children here in the cities. The Track and Field team joined us this time too. We made over 12,300 meals... that's enough meals to feed 34 children for a whole year. We learned that our food would be making the journey to Haiti next week. It was another great experience for our team to help out those in need while having fun too.


This weekend is our last dual against UM Morris and the St. Kates Invite on Saturday will wrap up a busy weekend. Hope everyone is staying warm!

Kelley

Saturday, January 8, 2011

Greetings from the Sunshine State!!

Hello Minnesota! I hope you are not completely frozen yet. We have been in Florida for a week now and have been enjoying our time here. We have been working very hard in the pool with two-a-days and enjoying the sunshine between practices. Trust me, its been rough with days in the lower 70's and upper 60's. Shana and Nicole have been very in tune with our training adjusting workouts to help us in the best way possible.

On Thursday (Happy Birthday Bridget!) we ventured to Key West to go para-sailing. It was so much fun to take the day off and enjoy the beautiful ocean from way up in the air. Below is a picture of what it looked like from the boat.




We have a few days left here on our training trip and I am certain we will make the best of them. We come back to frozen Minnesota on Tuesday and then we are off again to St. Thomas that weekend.

More pictures to come soon!

Kelley

Thursday, December 23, 2010

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!!

Sunday, October 24, 2010

Feed My Starving Children



This post is a couple of weeks late, but definitely worth writing about . . .

The last day of our first week of practice wasn't spent in the pool, it was spent in the weight room, goal-setting, and doing some volunteering (and team bonding) at a local non-profit, Feed My Starving Children. It was a great way to not only end the first week, but to give back to the community (and world)!

In the span of about an hour, we packed enough food to feed 35 children for an entire year. (Talk about making an impact!) We'll do the same thing in January over J-term, when all of the team is back to practice but taking a break from classes.

Here are a few pics from the evening!


Waiting to hear instructions (always wear your hair nets, ladies)!


Team work!



Proving it was an enjoyable experience--they even blasted music from the 90s while we packed!

A Successful First Meet!

Yesterday, Wildcat swimmers had their first meet of the season, the Augsburg Pentathlon. Since it was a swimming-only meet, the divers didn't compete. (They'll compete next week at St. Thomas Relays.) There were many highlights, including a sweep of the top nine finishes! The girls worked hard (they all swam five 100s--one of each stroke and a 100 IM--in the span of 1 hour and 15 minutes), and accomplished our two goals for the meet: finish each event :) and have fun.


Kathleen and Steff at Feed My Starving Children a couple of weeks ago. Kathleen was 7th and Steff placed 1st overall at the Augsburg Pentathlon. Way to rock those hair nets, ladies!

It was also our Parent Meet---we had a great crowd of family members and supporters come to cheer on their daughters, sisters, girlfriends, etc. We truly appreciate the support they give our team, and look forward to seeing a sea of Wildcat supporters at our upcoming meets! Thank you all for coming!

Sunday, October 10, 2010

Meet the Team!

October is finally here and our 2010-2011 season is underway. This year we are excited to have a larger team (especially a larger diving squad!) and so many wonderful & talented women. We hope to have all of our fans join us at our meets this year and cheering on us to another successful season. Our first meet is Saturday, October 23rd at St. Kate's for the Augsburg Pentathlon!


First-Years
Parrin, Nellie, Lauren, Kathleen, Sarah B., and Brooke

Sophomores
Alli, Steff, Mel, Kylah, Laura O-H, Lena, and Crissy

Juniors
Ashley, Laura M., Bridget, Reba, Mary, Sarah V., and Sarah M.

Seniors
Kelley and Marissa

Full Team

Saturday, September 4, 2010

New Blocks!

Our new starting blocks have arrived and just in time for our season!


Senior Kelley Holmes approves!!!