On Saturday Nov. 1st, history was made by the Women’s swim team. They recorded another spot on the top 10 times for the women’s 200 medley relay 1:57.66. The team consisted of Cally Tate, Caitlyn Stewart, Allie Warren, and Claire Labadie.
This relay team has two members (Tate & Labadie) who have also been a part of two other relays that recorded a top 10 200 relay time. “It’s nice to feel that I’ve had an impact on Monmouth swimming, especially with relay times. Relays are fun because you get to share your success with your teammates, and you all get to work together towards a collective goal, cheering each other on and lifting each other up,” said Labadie.
For some teams this is a great indicator of being on the right track especially this early into the season. “Initially I was pleased with my time after finishing the relay because I was able to see my split for my leg of the swim, and it was pretty good for this early in the season. I was also happy with the overall time for our relay, but it wasn’t until after the meet that I found out that we went a top 10 time- no one realized during the meet,” said Labadie.
But, that is in the past now and moving forward there are more things that need to be crossed off. Such as personal/individual goals.
“Moving forward, my main goal is to improve my time in my 50 freestyle- by conference I would like to be going under 26 seconds. This will be helpful in both my individual swims and the relays I am a part of later in the season, allowing us to hopefully go an even better relay time at conference,” said Labadie.
Having success this early in the season sets our team up nicely to go even faster times at conference. By then we are tapered, shaved, and wearing our competitive suits and usually end up dropping a lot of time at the end of the season. If we are setting top 10 times now, I can’t imagine what we’ll do at the conference meet.
The swim team has a few months to prepare for their conference meet which takes place Feb. 19th-22nd.
Cally Tate goes first in the medley relay Photo by Patrick Curry.