The Carlmont varsity girls swim team is off to a strong start with a dominant home victory over the Hillsdale Knights on Friday, Mar. 6. The whole team dominated the Knights in almost every event and is building momentum for the rest of the season.
The Scots are undefeated as of now. They won against Aragon and now Hillsdale, showcasing a strong team and individual performances throughout the meets. Carlmont ruled over the scoreboard, taking first place in every event.
Junior April Diehn made the Central Coast Section (CCS) cut with her 100-meter breaststroke, while sophomore Louise Scherrer made CCS with her 100-meter freestyle and 200-meter individual medley.
“April and Louise were the swimmers who stood out to me today from the meet. It’s good to get the CCS cut out of the way early in the season,” said varsity head coach Derek Koo.
Koo highlighted that he wanted the swimmers to face challenges and overcome obstacles.
“We do a lot of lung work for this group, just so that they’re a little bit more disciplined when they’re feeling out of breath,” Koo said. “I like to keep them cognizant of that and make sure that they’re really thinking about their oxygen consumption and preservation.”
Senior Alexa Elliot was able to get her best time for the 200-meter individual medley.
“I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t being too hard on myself and that I was just living in the moment,” Elliot said.
Hillsdale Knights trained hard for this swim meet and aimed to achieve personal best times.
“Carlmont is always a tough team to compete against, but our swimmers were definitely up for the challenge,” said the Hillsdale varsity head coach, Lesley Chiang.
Everyone on the team is motivated in different ways, and for Carlmont, it is defending their championship team title. Even though things sometimes get tough, Koo tries to remind everyone to have fun and enjoy swimming.
“With how demanding, physically and mentally, a sport is, it’s tough to kind of balance that, making sure that they’re staying relatively refreshed,” Koo said.
