Jeff Huxley has been coaching the Alma girls swim team for 33 years, and he has come up with another outstanding team this season.
“Our emphasis is always on good performances at the conference and state meet,” Huxley said. “In order to give us the best chance, we pretty much train through the regular season. The goal for us in any normal meet would be career best times, but also state meet qualifying times.”
Alma is 3-3 in the conference this season. All of the Panther meets are quads.
“The emphasis is putting kids in races where they have the best chance of reaching personal goals. That doesn’t always work out best in terms of scoring,” Huxley said. “But again, the emphasis is on swimming well at the end of the season Everyone is OK with that, I’m sure.”
The conference and state final meets are in the state finals.
At state, “we have pretty close to 25 top 10 finishes including four wins,” Huxley said.
Among the qualifiers for this year’s state finals are Lilly Vandemark, Kaleigh Kovac, Laura Lowe, Ashton Wentworth, Kate Duffy, and Natalie Walsh. Walsh swims the 200- and 400-yard freestyle relays; Duffy swims the 200-yard medley relay; and Wentworth swims the 200-yard medley, the 200- and 400-yard freestyle relays, and the 100-yard backstroke. Lowe qualified in the 200-yard medley relay, the 200- and 400-yard freestyle relays, and the 100-yard backstroke; Kovac qualified in the 50-, 100-, and 200-yard freestyles; the 200-yard medley; and the 200- and 400-yard freestyle relays. Vandemark swims the 50-, 100-, and 200-yard freestyles; the 200-yard individual medley; the 100-yard butterfly; the 100-yard backstroke; the 200-yard medley relay; and the 200- and 400-yard freestyle relays.
“This is pretty close to normal,” Huxley said, referring to the number of state qualifiers Alma has sent in a single season. “We can get another one in, six or seven is a normal group.”
Alma competes in Division 3 and would like to finish the year “inside the top 10,” Huxley said. “The emphasis is to swim to make the kids happy. This year I think we could be happy and still not get inside the top 10. I think we’ll score in lot of events, but we won’t score high enough in those events to accumulate a lot of points.”
In a recent tri-meet, Alma lost to Heritage 106-72 but beat Mount Pleasant 118-39. Lowe, Duffy, Vandemark, and Kovac won the 200-yard medley relay in 2:00.39 and Wentworth won the 200-yard intermediate in 2:23.83. Kovac also won the 100-yard freestyle in 56.5 seconds.
Vandemark won the 100-yard backstroke in 1:06.40. Vandermark, Kovac, Walsh, and Grace Lafoon were first in the 400-yard freestyle relay in 4:00.92.