MHS swimming season finishes season

On Nov. 14, Monroe varsity swimming finished up its season 1-7 at home. The final meet was a dual meet against rival SMCC. The score was close throughout the whole meet, but Monroe lost 74-76. That was also the team’s first home meet due to the fact that the MHS pool was being refinished. The whole process took six weeks, and the team had to practice at MMS in the meantime.

The Varsity Swim Coach Doug Schade explained some of the team’s strengths and weaknesses.

“Our strengths are that our athletes are dedicated; our weakness is we need more swimmers,” Schade said.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the team had to deal with restrictions, such as wearing masks when not in the pool and social distancing. Their meets were limited to four teams per meet, and the pool deck was split in half to help the teams spread out.

One of Monroe’s best swimmers, junior Kaylee Turner, talked about her experience as a swimmer training under these restrictions.

“These restrictions didn’t really make it harder to train surprisingly,” Turner said. “If we had a bigger team, it might have made a bigger impact, but we had about eight of us this year.” 

During that last meet, Turner finished first in three events. Her best stroke is freestyle. Her personal record is 5:41.57 on the 500-yard freestyle and 2:07.41 on the 200 yard freestyle.

Another one of Monroe’s MVPs, junior Meredith Soule, described the season under Covid-19 restrictions.

“The restrictions haven’t exactly made it harder to train but made meets more difficult,” Soule said.

Soule’s best stroke is the freestyle events and her personal record is 25.6 in the 50 yard freestyle and 55.6 in the 100 yard freestyle.