The numbers posted on the board at the Seymour pool announce the history of the school’s boys and girls swim teams, the advertisement of the fastest times ever clocked.
Some members of this year’s teams will be casting glances to the walls soon after they raise their heads from the water, hoping that clipping tenths or hundreds of seconds off their previous best times will earn them a place of honor in writing.
Sprinter Sandy Cerino hopes to get such business out of the way immediately this season, perhaps as early as today when the Owls face Madison in the season-opening meet at home at 6 p.m.
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Her fastest time in the 50-yard freestyle is 25.8 seconds. The wall number is 25.06.
“I hope to do it soon,” said Cerino, a senior. “It would be really special.”
The 50 is the most unforgiving of swim events. It is all about speed and technique and it is over so fast the competitors barely have time to take a breath. The dive from the blocks, the stroke, the turn, all must be nearly perfect to optimize time.
“For the 50,” Cerino said, “you don’t have enough time to make a mistake.”
This season the girls appear to have more depth than the boys, but overall the Owls are pretty young teams, the girls with six seniors, the boys with three.
But there are several key swimmers like Eduardo Zarate, Jack Land, Kirby Hill and others back to contribute.
Boggs, a 43-year coach, with 37 of them at Seymour, has ingrained a pattern of training that produces results, workouts that lead to high-level conference and state placings when the swimmers peak at the end of the season.
“It’s just our culture we’ve developed over the years,” Boggs said. “It’s a young team. It’s a nice mixture of newcomers and returning swimmers.”
The foremost thing on swimmers’ minds as the season approached was whether the COVID-19 pandemic will allow them to swim on without interruption. Boggs has addressed the outside threat, stressing prudent behavior and to just continue training the way they always have.
“I’m excited for this season,” said junior Maren McClure. “I hope we’re able to have one.”
McClure said she worked hard swimming over the summer and hit the weight room, too.
“I’m as ready as I can be,” she said.
Senior Bryce Miller is thinking the same way on that topic and like Cerino he is hoping he can eclipse a school record. The boys 100-yard freestyle mark is 47.78 seconds and Miller would like to punctuate his high school career by breaking it.
Miller began swimming in fourth grade and one thing he has always liked about the sport is the way it allows him to get into his own head.
“The solitude of it,” Miller said. “Swimming alone, I like to think.”
Miller may have his sights on the 47.78, but with a 50.30 best he knows it will take more work during the season to threaten that time.
“Maybe not yet,” he said of starting the season with a bang. “Later. I’m very hopeful. It is fast. But I’m capable.”
Junior Clay Greenawalt, who just completed a cross-country running season of many miles which built his stamina, is less of a sprinter than Miller. His best events are the 500-yard freestyle and the 100-yard breaststroke, not necessarily naturally compatible events.
Coaches usually make swimmers try each event once a season. Part of it is for variety and part of it is to see if there are gems waiting to be discovered. On one of those switch-it-up days last season, Greenawalt clocked 6:11 in the 500. Respectable.
Then he did the race again and cut his time to 5:42. By sectionals he was at 5:18, demonstrating raw potential.
“I was surprised,” Greenawalt said. “I was excited.”
Fresh off the cross-country season, when Greenawalt was sixth man for a strong team, said “there’s definitely a correlation, especially with the leg muscles, kicking and strength.”
While he is sure the mileage backlog will help him in the pool, Greenawalt said he doesn’t think the full benefits will accrue until later, after the smoothness of his swim technique has completely returned.
“Swimming is a combination of the physical and mental,” he said. “Overall, it’s the harder sport.”
The swimming school record for the 500 is 4:47, set in 1998, which is still a bit of a jump away, but not so far out there he can’t dream.
“That would a nice goal,” Greenawalt said. “That’s what I’m aiming for.”