During the period between fall semester and Winter Term, many students went home for a few weeks for a much-deserved break. However, members of the DePauw Swimming and Diving team had their breaks cut short, as they spent the final week before winter term on their annual training trip to Florida. The men’s team traveled to Cocoa Beach and the women’s team went to Manasota Key.
The trip served as an important training period for the athletes, as well as a morale booster and an opportunity to grow as a team. Although the men’s and women’s teams took separate trips, they both endured similar experiences that included grueling two-a-day practices which included challenging swim sets, out of water exercises, and weightlifting. Not only did the number of practices increase for the athletes, they also had to adjust to training in a long course, fifty-meter pool, as opposed to the short course, twenty-five yard pool at DePauw’s campus. “The most we did in one day was about thirteen thousand meters in one day,” explained junior team member Mitchell Davis, “But, we enjoyed every second of it and definitely grew as a team.”
The change of scenery also benefited the teams greatly outside of the water, and gave the teams some rejuvenation. During months of seemingly endless training, team morale can drop, and the teams scheduled the trip to help break up the monotony of winter training. “The trip really gets them excited and eager to train,” says women’s head coach Shea Davisson. “They know that Florida is going to be the hardest training that they are going to do all year, but to them it is worth it.”
Traveling as a team helped the swimmers become closer as a unit. While the swimmers were recovering from the difficult training that they were enduring, they were able to spend time together, be it at the beach or at the team hotels. “Training trip is when you see the team really start to form and take shape,” Davisson said. “The freshmen start to branch out and get to know the upperclassmen really well, which really benefits the team.”
Both teams partook in competitions during the trip, as the women traveled to Saint Petersburg for the Saint Pete Classic, and the men hosted a dual meet against Rhodes College. The men outswam Rhodes in a 32-19 victory, while the women finished tied for first place with a Division II team, South Dakota State. “We did pretty well overall,” said sophomore Marihelen Gallagher, “After a hard week of training it was pretty hard to pull off but a tie for first was pretty exciting.”
The Tigers will look to continue their momentum going into their championship season, as they are currently prepping for the NCAC Championships from February 9th-11th, where several members of the team will look to advance to the NCAA Division III National Championship meet.