By Richard Geraffo
You’d  think a swim meet couldn’t have too much water. Apparently that’s not always the case, something the Marcos de Niza Boys   and Girls swim teams discovered when they traveled to Westwood High School in Mesa to take on the Warriors. It was their fourth meet of the year.
Due to rain and booming claps of thunder, the two schools weren’t able to compete, as the weather became unsafe for swimming after only two races.
The meet was called and no official score was posted, but this didn’t faze Padres men’s head coach Bart Baumler’s enthusiasm, as he was supremely confident in his team’s ability.
“All of my freshmen and sophomores love swimming; they make practice every day and they’re improving on a daily basis.”
Baumler is focused on the future of his team because of the number of young swimmers he has available to him. “My swimmers are very good,” he said.
The women’s team also recently lost most of its senior swimmers, according to Padres women’s head coach Mick Wojciechowicz.
“Our girls team is kind of small; we lost a lot of seniors last year,” said Wojciechowicz.
“We actually don’t have any girls senior swimmers, so we have a much smaller team and this will be a developing year for us.” While losing most of its varsity swimmers from last year, the entire Marcos swimming program is young and has a bright future ahead.
“I’m really looking forward to seeing them next year,” Baumler said.
Coach Wojciechowicz spoke highly of one of his star swimmers, Ellie Young. Young is only a sophomore at Marcos but has already exceeded expectations as a butterfly swimmer.
“In the fist dual meet, she already made provisional times in the 100 meter butterfly,” said Wojciechowicz.
These times technically don’t count until an invitational, but the times Young posted would have qualified her for the state meet, according to Wojciechowicz.
Young is still realizing her potential and has a lot of room to grow.
Said Wojciechowicz:
“She is really impressive, and we just need to get some more girls out next year, and keep building off of that.”
Richard Geraffo is a student at ASU’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication.
