Seahorse coach Chelsea Lea is pleased with how her team has improved since its season began just under a month ago.
“I’ve been really impressed,” Lea said. “Each meet our swimmers have improved (his or her) times by (a team-average of) 3 seconds, which is great… I’m really excited to see them beat (their personal bests) each meet, because the most important thing to me is that we continue to get better.”
One standout is Trenton Varney, who swims in the 11-12 year-old group.
“Trenton has improved his time each meet by at least 6 seconds,” Lea said. “That is just amazing.”
She credits the older, more experienced swimmers on the team with helping develop the confidence of the team’s younger swimmers.
Della Lohman and Megan Klubek – both 17-year-old swimmers – are two of the veterans, who have quickly embraced leadership roles within the team.
“They are both great inspirations for a lot of our younger ones who haven’t had as much swim team experience.” Lea said. “It is nice to have older kids to show the strokes, because then they can watch them in races. It is one thing to see your coach do it. It is another thing to see someone else who is swimming with you do it, so they are great role models.”
Anthony Bottini had a very strong meet against Chanute and even though he is older than Varney and some of the other Seahorses, Lea says his improvement this year has also been very impressive.
“From the beginning of the year until now, his strokes have improved so much,” Lea said. “He is now coming out with one of the best butterfly strokes I’ve seen from a boy his age. It is looking amazing.”
The Seahorses have even bumped Bottini up an age group at times.
“I usually try to swim him up because he is our only boy in the 13-14 age category,” Lea said. “Every time I bump him up to 15-18, and he does amazing even in that age group.”
