Samo swim team dives into season

After a strong 2016 season, the Samo swim team had high hopes for the following 2017 season. Last year, a handful of the swim team competed in CIF, setting a high standard for this year’s athletes to meet.Although many strong seniors were lost last season, coach Matthew Flanders believes the team can do just as well, if not better than last year. One of his major concerns is the health of his swimmers with the recent spread of illness around Samo.“It is shaping up to be a great season as well,” Flanders said. “Looking forward to some more local domination and sending more swimmers to state.”Swimmer, Grace Alexander (’19) also believes that this season, the team has a lot of potential and will go far in all of their major events.“We have a really good group of seniors this year that will pull the girls varsity and the boys varsity through to CIF. Hopefully we can go pretty far into CIF,” Alexander said.In addition, Alexander looks forward to the many meets the team will have and the bonding that the returning and new participants will partake in.“There’s a really big group of freshmen,” Alexander said. “We’re really excited to have 25, 30 new people.”The swim team started with their first meet on Mar. 1, at Crossroads High School, and continued on from there, with many meets and events lined up in their schedule, the next one on Mar. 12. The team is getting closer and closer to their league season.“All league meets are big, but CIF out in Riverside, State in Fresno and the South Bay Invite are fun,” Flanders said.Overall, the team has a strong foot going forward into their 2017 season, and are looking forward to the success that they will have this season.