Making Waves

Stella Kersebet (left) and Delilah Rose (right).

Stella Kersebet and Delilah Rose

Our featured swimmers this week are Stella Kersebet and Delilah Rose, both 13 years old and in seventh grade. Both swimmers had best times in every event at the DCY Hawaiian Swim meet. Once again, you can see that we cover Door County, with Stella attending Gibraltar School and Delilah attending Southern Door. We have a group of swimmers in the sixth- to eighth-grade level that are very competitive, many eclipsing high school swimming times. Both of these girls have improved throughout the year in work ethic and intensity. Stella had another fantastic meet at the GBY Frost Invite this past weekend but, unfortunately, Delilah was ill and had to pull out of the meet.

Notes from Coach Mike McHugh: As a swim team, we are past our overload sessions now and many of our older swimmers are very tired. Although it’s not very comfortable, in order to taper for the end of the season in March, swimmers should be very fatigued now. It’s very hard to have “best times” at this point, but the payoff is better in the end. This is an example that displays the difference of the science and strategy of swimming compared to other sports.

DCY swim team splits at the end of month, as a majority of the team will travel to Michigan while our elite swimmers compete in Milwaukee. At the Schroeder A+ meet in Milwaukee, some of the best swimmers in the Midwest along with a few Olympians will be swimming. The team heading north will be on a Babler bus to compete at the “Yooper Invite” hosted by the Northern Lights YMCA. Older swimmers are assigned to watch over and care for younger swimmers on the trip, building longlasting memories and a unifying team experience.

Swim Terms: Course – The length of a pool. Long course pools are 50 meters (or occasionally 50 yards), while short course pools are 25 yards or 25 meters. There are two seasons for competitive swimming: long course season and short course season.

The Door County YMCA facility has an eight-lane, 25-yard course pool with IST (International Sports Timing) System, touch pads and full numeric display board.

Upcoming Meets:

SPDY Underdog Meet: Stevens Point, Jan. 24

Schroeder A+: Brown Deer, Jan. 30 – Feb. 1

Yooper Invitational: Escanaba, Mich., Jan. 31

Oshkosh Winter Open: Feb. 5–8

For more information visit the DCY website: teamunify.com/Home.jsp?team=widcy