By BUTCH HARMON
The St. Johns girls swimming and diving team is off to a strong start this season, and they are doing it in style in a new pool.
“We have a brand new 10-lane pool,” coach Kim Brewbaker said. “Our previous pool was a six-lane pool, so it is a quite noticeable improvement. We are very, very happy and very, very fortunate to have this facility available for our kids.”
Having a 10-lane pool is an asset for the team. “It’s a tremendous benefit,” Brewbaker said. “With a six-lane pool, you give up a couple of lanes to have your divers practice. With only four lanes, it makes things quite crowded for our swimmers. It’s quite difficult to have a quality workout. With 10 lanes, it enables everyone to practice. It allows our divers to work out at the same time as our swimmers.”
The hard work the Redwing swimmers are putting in is paying off. “The season has been going very good for us,” Brewbaker said. “We just defeated Owosso 130-53. We also finished second out of 12 teams at the Waverly Relays. Okemos was the only team that finished ahead of us, and they are a perennial powerhouse.”
The Redwings have a young team with a strong nucleus of newcomers. “We are a young team, but we have a pretty good mix of veterans and new kids,” Brewbaker said. “We have eight or nine new girls, and we only lost three seniors off last year’s team. We have a good group of returnees and a good group of new girls that adds to our depth.”
Among the swimmers leading the way for St. Johns are Alexandra Davis (distance), Kari Bellant (backstroke/sprint), Rachel Ely (all events), Meg Pope (IM/breaststroke), Catherine Voisin (butterfly/IM), Kayla Bellant (backstroke/sprints), Emma Shaefer (all events), Callie LaBar (all events), and Lily Burns (diving).
“We have a good group of girls,” Brewbaker said.
St. Johns is looking to build off the strong start and the excitement of the new pool as the year goes on.
“Our number one goal is to win our conference,” Brewbaker said. “We finished fourth in the conference last year, and we look to improve on that this year.
Our other goal is to have a better showing at the Division 2 state meet this year. We want to get some girls to make it to the second day at state and score some points. We didn’t get anyone to the second day last year at state, and this year we want to get some to the second day.”