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Swim team earns a win after Florida trip
By Sue DePassio
Collegian Reporter
The swim team's hard training over winter
break paid off in a 99-93 win over Ashland University on Saturday.
The Chargers picked up their third victory
of the season in a tight meet that came down to the last couple
events.
"It was an equal match because the teams
were the same size and there wasn't a diving competition,"
coach MaryAnne Gerzanick said.
Freshman Amanda Smith paced the Chargers with
a pair of victories in the 50-free (25.52 seconds) and 100-free
(55.64). Hillsdale had 17 individual or relay teams that finished
in the top three places.
Gerzanick said she has been impressed by her
team's successes. She said her expectations haven't been high
since the team has been overworked in recent practices.
The team did most of its conditioning over
winter break. While everyone else was relaxing at home, the
Charger swim team kept busy with its annual training trip to
Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
On Jan. 5 the Chargers boarded a plane to
sunny Florida to begin a week-long training trip that would
prepare them for the GLIAC Championship meet, which takes place
in February.
"It was definitely not what you would
call a relaxing trip," junior co-captain Amy Stone said.
"But we got a lot of good training in."
In fact, the team trained twice a day. Mornings entailed a long
course work out from 6 a.m. to 8:30 a.m., and afternoons were
for short course training from 2 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.. The Chargers
didn't have
much time for fun in the sun.
"We were exhausted," sophomore Cylie
Hoopingarner said. "We were in bed by 9 p.m."
Stone said that the training was rigorous
but will be beneficial to their competition at the GLIAC tournament.
The training focused on endurance and distance
to recover the discipline that the swimmers may have lost over
winter break.
Gerzanick said the team's workout was called
overload training, which consisted of overloading the body so
tapering is easier to adapt to. Gerzanick said the team swam
14,000 yards a day, with a total of 85,000 yards the whole trip.
To put that into perspective, it is the same
distance as halfway to Cuba and back if one started from Miami.
In the little bit of spare time they had,
some of the girls sun-tanned, others took naps, and on one occasion
they had a girls' night out to the movies.
The only difference from past years' trips
was the lack of a men's team.
"We missed them," Stone said. "They
were a lot of fun last year, but it was also good for [all of
the girls] to just bond."
When the team returned to school it resumed
a regular training schedule of morning and afternoon practices.
Before their winter trip, the Chargers competed
at the Notre Dame Invitational Dec. 4-6.
They placed 14th of 15 schools, tallying 79
points in the meet.
The 15 schools were represented by 500 swimmers
from 13 different states.
Gerzanick said that the team exceeded her
expectations at the invitational.
"They swam phenomenally," Gerzanick
said. "I was so impressed with their performance."
The team broke three school records and set
two NCAA "B" time standards.
In addition the team achieved 12 lifetime
and 15 season best swims.
Hoopingarner broke a school record in the
100-fly (59.71) and 100-back (1:00.84) including a lifetime
best record.
"Coach trained me really well for both
of my events, but I was shocked and didn't expect to get the
times that I did," Hoopingarner said.
The competition at Notre Dame was tough, which
included 13 NCAA Division I schools. "[The invitational]
is intimidating because there are huge teams and Hillsdale only
has like 10 girls," Hoopingarner said. "But we did
really well despite that."
Freshman Amanda Smith broke the all-school
mark in the 500-free with an NCAA "B" standard time
of 24:85.
Freshman Abbie Crawford also had a lifetime
best score.
"I was very excited because I hadn't
done a lifetime best in five years and to get that time was
a great achievement," Crawford said.
The Chargers' next event is the GLIAC Championship
Feb. 18-22, which Hillsdale will be hosting.
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