The best things in life are free,
but breast, fly and back aren’t bad either
by Sarah Zucker, Staff Writer

The lane lines, the goggles, the all-day swim meets! It might not sound enjoyable to you, but this is all fun for our West Geauga swim team. Starting back in October, with pre-season, these varsity swimmers have been working hard to open their exciting season.
Most of the team has returned for this season, although they lost some members. They have dramatically added to the team this year with freshmen John Avery, Jacob Burdeche, Nick Pirc, Tyler Roth, Lauren Cicigoi, Jennifer Dickard, Courtney Misich, Sarah Russ and junior Alex Antico.
Working together as well as they do in the water, captains Jamie Todd, Matt White, Todd Kowalski and Caitlin Misich are planning to get together outside of the water for many planned social events. After meets and Saturday practices the team hopes to go out to eat, enjoy fun activities or just go back to somebody’s house to lounge around for some extra team bonding.
The team opened its season December 1st, at the Bedford Relays, where they competed against five other teams, including Bedford, Nordonia, Cleveland Heights, Brush and Aurora. Although the boys did not defend their title as the first place winners, they did finish in second behind Aurora. The competition this year was much more fierce, but the girl’s team managed to place fourth, behind Nordonia in first place, Bedford in second place and Brush in third.
The second meet of the season took place at Case Western Reserve. It was an all- girls meet against Beaumont. Although the girls did well and took first in two out of three relays they came up short in the end and lost against Beaumont.
When asked what the team’s goals were for the season, coach Mrs. Debbie Diadiun answered, “Improve our records from last year, qualify more individuals to districts and qualify 1 or 2 boys and girls relays to districts.”
If you bought candy from the students walking around school with suitcases full of it, you are contributing to your West Geauga swim team. Currently they are selling M&M’s, peanut M&M’s, Snickers and Skittles to raise money for pool hours and equipment. The team has already held a Kettle Corn sale, which you might have seen outside of our local Giant Eagle and Drug Mart.
Swimmers to especially look out for as the season begins are District qualifiers and captains Jamie Todd and Katelyn Misich, and district qualifiers Jaclyn Gleske and Anthony Pirc. With a rough ending to the season last year, after breaking his arm, Beau Lajeunuese is also expected to go far this year. Along with that group is Greg Watson, who after all of his growth and improvement from last year, should be a good candidate for Districts this year. The team, as a whole broke 20 records last year. This year they plan to strive for 30 broken records.