The Hayes Swim and Dive team is preparing in hopes of a fourth consecutive win at The Ohio Capital Conference (OCC). As the season picks up, the team will compete in two meets before their trip to Upper Arlington to compete in OCC’s.
While the team participates in multiple meets, due to the scoring in swimming, OCCs is the one meet at the end of the season that is the most substantial for the team. Swimmers will compete in their event of choice and try to rack up the most points for their team based on the place they finished and any time dropped.
The way scoring works for swimming is through percentages. So in individual events, a swimmer can get up to six points for a first-place finish. Whereas for relay events, swimmers can get up to 12 points for a first-place finish. With each event accumulating points towards the school’s overall placement.
There are also improvement points: every time a swimmer drops time, one point is added. At the end of the meet, the placement points and the improvement points are added up to reveal the winner of the swim meet.
Since Oct. 28, the team has been practicing in preparation for OCCs, Districts and then States. Throughout the season, the team follows a routine schedule of practice, school, and weight lifting.
“[Practices] have been hard, but it’s been rewarding to receive the gifts from that,” freshman member Mathew Booth said. “I’ve become a lot stronger [and] a lot more mentally tough.”
The individual members of the team have their own goals, such as qualifying for districts or dropping time, but one goal everyone has in mind is winning at OCCs.
Their OCC winning streak started in the 2021-2022 season, which was this year’s seniors’ freshman year. The team was able to carry this legacy for three years and the last OCC meet was won with just under 320 points from the girls team and almost 270 points from the boys team.
“I feel like it’s just kind of a good way to leave the program with a fourth win and it would be awesome,” senior and captain Kara Glesenkamp said.
One of the greatest factors of a successful team is the team culture. The coach, Garrett Eiben, described the culture as being all about “positivity” and instilling “the Pacer’s attitude.”
“I feel like our team culture is really unique from all the other high school teams that you would see,” sophomore member Dori Thoman said. “We’re all very close friends and it’s just a really fun environment.”
There are multiple things that unite a team, such as goals, traditions and volunteering, but one of the more unique customs for the Pacer team is “families.” Each “family” is composed of a captain and an upperclassman as they are mentored for a future leadership position or just a season of hard work. Then, later they compete in competitions across “families” during practices to help bring the team together.
“We just love giving back and doing everything together,” Eiben said.
The team often attends other sporting events throughout the year that their teammates participate in. Which is one of the many ways that they help bring the team closer together and create an inclusive and expressive environment.
As the season grows closer to OCC, the team will begin to focus on dropping their times in an effort to keep their streak. More and more practices and meets will begin to show how much work the team is putting in and it will show during OCC.
“It’s not easy, and you have to work hard to see the results you want to get, but it’s worth it,” Glesenkamp said.
