A season ago, the Mingus swim team sent a deep group of swimmers to the state championship meet. A number of those swimmers from 2019’s team have graduated. Despite that, the 2020 team maintains high expectations.
Coach Gretchen Wesbrock has been impressed by the dedication she’s seen from her team. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, swimmers have had their practice time essentially cut in half, having to train in two groups for one hour each as opposed to one large group for two hours. Because of that, she’s seen an increased focus from the members of the team. It’s a sentiment the leaders of her team share.
“We’re pushing ourselves a lot more in the time we have,” senior captain Charlie Green said. “In the past few years we’ve had two hours to spread out and put our workouts in. Now we’re putting it into an hour and swimming the same amount that we have been. We’ve just been working harder.”
“It’s tough being one hour,” fellow senior captain Tiana Lodico said. “We’re not getting as much time as we like but the practices are like 10 times harder being only one hour. And that is really great.”
Wesbrock is also fond of the adjusted practices, as it allowed her to uphold her tradition of not cutting anyone who wants to swim. The Marauders have seven freshmen on this year’s team as well as two new upperclassmen.
One of the incoming freshmen is Emily Martin, who Wesbrock believes will have a big year and career at Mingus. The Marauders also return a deep group of girls including Green, Locico and juniors Brooke Peterson, Jade Bach, Aleana Cricks, and Bailey and Madison Hartman.
Sterling Sorensen is a captain on the boys side. Wesbrock also believes that returning juniors Landon Trezise and Jack Zahoudanis are primed to have good seasons. Additionally, Wesbrock also noted that she has high expectations for three returning sophomore boys — Race Armstrong, Hunter Cowgill and Jackson Moore. She added that the trio is skilled now in the freestyle and hopes that their competitive drive and love of racing will kick in once they better learn the other strokes.
Mingus will open its season on Thursday, Sept. 24 with a virtual meet against Prescott and Payson. While Mingus is technically hosting the meet, Prescott will swim in its home pool. Payson doesn’t have a pool and will swim at Mingus’ home pool in Cottonwood, but not at the same time as the Marauders. The teams will all have officials at their sites to ensure that the times are legitimate.
After the times are posted, the home team’s coach will put everything together to figure out points.
“It’s going to take off a little of the competitive edge because we’re not having the actual team up here to go against,” Sorensen said. “But I don’t think that means we’re going to try any less hard. We’re still going to put 100% into everything we do and I think we can still do as well as we’ve been doing.”
