Student’s at swim districts in the Kroc Center. Photo taken by Grayson Harms.
A battle between all district schools took the stage at the Kroc Center on February 10 from 1-5 p.m. in a heated competition. In particular, there was a rivalry between West Salem High School Titans and South Salem High School Saxons. The battle ended with the result of the South girls taking home the title of district champion. Unlike the girl’s team, South’s varsity boy’s team could not seize victory against West Salem, instead taking second in the meet.
This is it, the last race. Leave today knowing that you gave it everything. This is our day! We are one big Saxon family,
Brittney Awalt, the head coach of South Salem Swim, said.
This motivation came straight from South Salem’s head coach Brittney Awalt, who gave the “Ohana” speech when they huddled up before the beginning of the meet. This year’s ‘motto’ for the team was “Ohana” which means family. With all of the events leading up to the finale between West and South, both coaches had different things to say. With West’s coach beating the boys, he hopped into the pool and talked to the assistant coaches.
“Different circumstances,” Dan Evans, West varsity boys coach, said.
Before the event started, all of the coaches met with their teams and gave pep talks for the meet. McNary’s coach answered a couple of quick questions.
We have a younger team this year. We plan to hold the lead for as long as we can. During training the kids have been determined to put in the hard work,
Casey Lewin said.
Many different teams had different strategies, but all of them involved tapering. Tapering is cutting down the days you exercise before a big event, to conserve energy in the week before
“Kids are doing great, tapering to back off, and have had good swims,” Rash said.
After the meet and taking home MVP of swim coach for boys and girls for the whole swim season, Head Coach Brittney Awalt talked about how she had to coach differently than last year.
We lost a few swimmers, but we didn’t lose the depth,
Awalt said.
Awalt spoke about Ohana, delving more into the family-team dynamic.
“We had to work hard as one, working mostly with good swimmers to prepare them to be good at one specific race,” Awalt said.
After the races and meet were concluded, different teams headed back to their designated areas and hung out while they waited on their coaches. While there, they would pass a football around, play card games and be in each other’s company. When Coach Brittney arrived, everyone drew quiet. She addressed the entirety of the period of the swim team, thanked everyone for the season of “Ohana” together and wished everyone well going forward in whatever they choose to pursue in their lives.
