SCSU takes a pre-season swim

After five weeks of grueling practices, swimming endless laps and trying to perfect the strokes and dives, the Husky swimming and diving team took a break from that routine this weekend.

They hosted the two day Intersquad meet at Halenbeck hall this weekend.

“It gives them a little idea of where they are. It gives them a little competition before we get into our regular season meets,” head coach Jeff Hegle said.

The Husky men and women swam breaststrokes, backstrokes and butterflies all weekend. The team was split into to two squads, red and black.

After the final competition Saturday, the black team edged the red team according to the SCSU Web site, which provided live stats.

“In the beginning it’s ‘I don’t know these people’, but by mid-season its like a big family, you can talk to one another,” said senior captain Alisha Blaydes.

Blaydes was just one place away from being an All-American in the 100 freestyle last year at Nationals and she hopes to remedy that this season.

“Make it back to nationals and be top eight in my event nationally and to get some freshmen to nationals,” Blaydes stated as her goals for the season.

“Our freshmen are outstanding we have about 25 of them so we have lots, they are a  real  quality group of kids they come in they have a great attitude they work extremely hard, they will really help us out a lot,” Hegle said.

Blaydes isn’t afraid to be leading the large pack of freshmen however.

“It gives me an opportunity to get the team up and going, and if they are not doing so hot and you get the team up and going, you can turn a meet around in one event,” Blaydes said.

Blaydes swims the 200 freestyle, 100 freestyle and most of the relays for the Huskies.

The swimming and diving season lasts until the NCAA Championships in March, so over a long season the swimmers can lose focus.

“There’s a point in the middle of the season when you’re like  ‘why do I do this to myself? Why am I struggling?,’ but you remind yourself that at the end of it you can be top eight and swim your lifetime best and just be focused on that,” Blaydes said.

Hegle offers some of the Huskies solutions to a long season.

“We do a lot of goal setting; we do a lot of things where we talk about ‘why are we doing this? What’s important? What’s it going to accomplish?’” Hegle said. “We try to keep everything fresh; we do a lot of different things to keep them going in the right direction.”
SCSU had three All American divers last season and one national champion.

However, they were all seniors last year which brings a whole lot of new talent on display in the diving pool.

“We have a whole lot of new divers, and we have a lot of big shoes to fill, but it’s kind of exciting coming into such a good program,” said first year diver Luke Weber.

“Its way bigger than a high school team, you meet a lot of people, it’s easy to fit in around here and make new friends.”

Also losing those divers and other seniors brings in a new regime of leadership for the Huskies.

“They’re probably some of the strongest group of leaders that I’ve had in some time,” Hegle said. “They have really taken it upon themselves to help some of the younger kids and keep everything running efficiently and have done a good job of setting good examples for everything.”

Women’s captains include: Blaydes, Katie Brueggemann, Megan Cotton, Cathy Haen and Kelly Vieau.

Men’s captains are Joel Gregory, Brian Jacobs, Alex Milberger, Jim Schulp and Joe Spann.
The Huskies sent a record 20 athletes to Nationals last season.

They open up this year’s season on Oct. 16-17 in Moorhead taking on the Dragons.

“One of the biggest things we talk about on the team is just trying to improve every week, Hegle said. “If we can improve every week, by the time we get to the end of the season good things can happen.”

Full results of the intersquad meet can be found at www.stcloudstate.edu/athletics/sports/livestats/sportsstats3/