by Theodore Tollefson

This last week, the Hastings Raiders Girls Swimming and Dive team had one meet on the schedule on Thursday, October 7 against the North St. Paul Polars. The meet was the second to last regular season meet for the Raiders Girls Swim team on the season and was senior night at home at the Hastings Middle School pool.

The Raiders won the meet against the Polars by a score of 97 to 63. There were two swimmers of the meet for the Raiders with senior Olivia Smiley and junior Shannon Olsen. Smiley had improved her best time in the 50 yard freestyle by half a second and finished second overall in the 500 yard varsity freestyle. Olsen had a personal best time in the 50 yard freestyle event and finished fourth place in the 100 yard varsity butterfly event.

The meet victory was the Raiders second consecutive in the last week and they have won their fourth out of their last five meets. The Raiders Girls Swim and Dive team have six seniors on the team this year. The seniors are Smiley, Kendal Jenkins, Lydia Lerbs, Sunshyne Lewis, Claire Meier, and Ireland Zaruba.

With only one meet on the schedule for the week for the Raiders Girls Swim team, there was much more time for team events that both the team and coaches participated in. Raiders Girls Swim team head coach Katie McAlpin talked about the events the team had outside the pool for the week.

“Monday we had our spaghetti dinner fundraiser and for practice we did dryland on the playground at Pinecrest.. Wednesday we did a fun partner dryland with beach balls. At the end I split them up in two groups, upperclassmen and underclassmen to see who can keep the ball up with more hits. The upperclassmen won. When I put them together they did almost 50 more. Worked out just how I was hoping!” said McAlpin.

As only one regular season meet remains on the schedule for the Raiders Girls Swim team, practices are having things changed up a bit as McAlpin shared, “Friday for water practice we did warmup and then a team get out to swim. All of the girls had to come together and swim a 17 person relay with each person doing a 100 free. If they beat their season best time all added together they got to go home early. They did it! They beat their best time by three seconds.”

The Raiders final regular season meet is on Thursday, October 14 on the road at Tartan High School which begins at 6:00 p.m. Following this meet, the Raiders next invite is scheduled for October 30, which is for diving.

Lila Salzman competes in the 100 butterfly. Photo by Bruce Karnick