McDaniel Women’s Swimming has created an entirely new record board over the last few years. The team practices over 20 hours per week during the season, leading to many individual conference medals, among all of their successes.
Led by Head Coach Jeff Hiestand, these 12 girls have accomplished a lot. An assistant coach for nine years, Heistand is in his 7th season as head coach.
“Our workouts have been more challenging at this point, than any other year, and they are meeting those challenges on a daily basis. We are expecting big swims come February,” said Heistand, looking out onto the coming season.
“It’s really tough, but our tight swim schedule gives a limited window to do homework so it keeps me on track,” said Syd Knadler, a senior, “I always tend to get better grades during swim season.”
Sam Smith, a junior, had a similar response, saying, “I feel like swimming actually helps manage my time better. Because so much of my time is dedicated to swimming, I feel like I am much less likely to procrastinate on school work.”
The women’s team works with the men’s team during practice, which helps both teams to improve.
“I love working with the men’s team,” said Becca Sykes, “It gives us girls some other form of competition and they definitely make practices entertaining,” the junior continued.
The girls take their sport very seriously. According to Emma Perdue, as a team they, “hang out the night before every meet and make team and individual goals.”
Along with this, they know how to have fun.
“The morning of a meet we have two people selected for a pre-meet locker room pump,” Perdue continued, “They make a skit or just go crazy in the locker room to get everyone excited before we warm up.”
When asked if the team had anything else, they all added that they would like McDaniel to know about their amazing team. They want everyone to know that McDaniel does have a pool, and there is a swim team. The team may be small, but they are mighty.
The team has already kicked off their season and had their first home meet. They went head-to-head with Gettysburg on Nov. 16, where they lost 55-31, but the loss came with many individual wins.
The future schedule holds meets through February, many of which are at home.
