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- Freshman Jessie Powers swims the butterfly Wednesday, Oct. 19 against Dedham.
by Jay Feinstein
Tonight, in the last meet of the regular season, girls’ swimming and diving, 6-4-1, will face a small Mount Alvernia team.
This is the first year that the Tigers are competing against Mount Alvernia, so the Tigers are excited, according to coach Kirsten Tuohy.
Mount Alvernia has “a couple of really strong swimmers,” she said.
Competing against a small team can be good or bad for the Tigers, Tuohy said.
It could be good because the Tigers could have an advantage in swimming events, but Mount Alvernia does not have a diving team.
“At least they don’t have boys on their team,” Tuohy joked.
Other smaller schools that the Tigers competed against, such as Norwood, Walpole and Weymouth have had co-ed teams this season.
The Tigers hope to use their depth of stroke in events including butterfly, breaststroke and backstroke, to beat Mount Alvernia, Tuohy said.
“We’re getting really competitive in stroke events, and it’s exciting,” she said.
According to Tuohy, the Tigers’ freestyle events are not as strong, but they have been improving.
“We have more depth in freestyle events now than we have had in recent memory.”
In a meet against Framingham, junior Nina Kaplan achieved a 6:02 time in the 500-freestyle, which was 8 seconds faster than her time from the previous meet against Walpole.
“She’s been improving every time we compete,” Tuohy said. “Her goal is to break the six minutes, and she might do that in the final meet.”
To prepare for the final regular season meet, the Tigers have been splitting up the practices between JV and varsity members.
When one group swims, the other runs. “Cross training makes a huge difference,” Tohy said.
“We’ve gotten stronger since we started doing more cross training, and we’re continuing to get stronger,” she said.
The Tigers are not without their struggles, though.
They have recently coped with the concussions of three members of the team, according to assistant coach Michael Pohlman.
“The other girls have had to step up and swim other events.”
According to Tuohy, “It’s not so much about how the injuries affect the team. It’s about how the injuries affect the individuals.”
The Tigers have a strong team dynamic, said senior Hunter Hedenberg, a captain with senior Veronica Ingham.
