Diving right in, as the girls swim team at Toll Gate comes to an end in March, we’ve had many close calls and highlights like senior night. Our swim team is made up of a total of eighteen girls; they all strive for their best in and out of the pool. Most of our team is built on returning seniors who enjoyed being on the swim team so much they went above and beyond to recruit underclassmen, primarily freshmen, so they can build their abilities and improve our team spirit over the next three years. Many girls have dropped their time drastically, dropping even fifteen seconds from the start of the season. This is amazing because divisionals are approaching fast; they are on February thirteenth at Roger Williams University.
Before joining the swim team, many people wonder how swimming is taught with the coach above water, not in the water with us, but our coach, Coach Gina Hand, has been a swimmer pretty much her whole life, as has her daughter. So our coach knows the ins and outs of swimming in and out of the pool. At the beginning of practice we start with a few laps of freestyle, the stroke that is easiest to learn and most natural. What we do next depends on if we start on the deep end; if we do, we will then practice diving; if not, we will either work on the basics like kicking or pulling (pulling is working on arm motion/movement) or, work on the stroke we are best at. Between drills we stretch, and then towards the end of practice, we work on speed and sprinting to the finish line/end of the lane. Last but not least, we work on flip turns and streamlining to increase our efficiency. During practice and meets, Coach Gina encourages while also pushing us to do our best, but she includes many fun traditions, like the weekly challenge of who can do a handstand the longest, or while we practice kicking, we throw around a small soccer ball to one another, sometimes Coach will even throw the occasional snowball into the pool too. Since a large portion of the team is leaving because the majority are seniors, we need more girls for next year. Consider joining the Toll Gate girls’ swim team next season and join in on these exciting traditions!!
