In past years, rival schools such as St. Mary's, Lincoln, Lodi and Tokay have consistently had several year-round swimmers. This advantage enables those schools to have swimmers who literally have non-stop training.
However, Bear Creek's lack of year-round swimmers did not halt the success of Bear Creek's junior varsity boys swim team.
"Our JV boys did great this year and so did the JV girls," swim coach Betty Orzalli said. "Hopefully the JV kids will keep improving and moving up as the years go by so that we will grow stronger as a team."
The junior varsity boys once again placed first in the San Joaquin Athletic Association league championship meet and the junior varsity girls repeated a second place, trailing closely behind St. Mary's.
"Our varsity team did not have much depth this year," Orzalli said. "What I mean by that is we had a small group of varsity and so in the league meet, we had only about five girls and five boys competing. We didn't have many people to fill in on relays and double up on heats in order to score more points."
Although many of the junior varsity swimmers do not swim year round, Bear Creek swim coach Dennis Nugent says that it is a vital aspect to becoming skilled.
"Until more of the athletes at Bear Creek swim year round, Lodi, Tokay and Lincoln swimmers will continue to improve and be talented," Nugent said.
Senior Christina Nishimoto has only swum summer league for Lodi Recreation and wishes that she had toughened up and chosen to take the long and grueling route of year round swimming.
"I think that if I had swum year round, it would be much harder on my academics but it would definitely help me train for the swim season," Nishimoto said. "Not swimming year round was a really difficult decision to make and I just wish that I had because I think it would improve my swimming skills a whole lot more."
While other schools may have the opportunity of placing their top swimmers into the junior varsity or varsity levels, Nugent says that he does not have enough swimmers to split them up. With a roster of only 28 girls and 12 boys, the tiny list has to be savored every little bit.
"We have a young team this year," Nugent said, "primarily made up of freshmen and sophomores. At the league meet, there would be very few varsity [swimmers] present."
Nugent said that all boys should be competing at the Varsity level in order to increase the chance of winning at dual meets. While all the boys were placed to swim varsity level during dual meets, during the league meet, Nugent allowed each swimmer to compete at his own level.
Among the top female swimmers are juniors Lindsay Troglia for sprinting in freestyle and Sarah Shuetz for butterfly; sophomores Lyssa Hughes for sprinting freestyle and Lisa Roby for butterfly and freestyle; and freshmen Summer Lopez for breast stroke and Heather Babaoka for freestyle.
Stepping into the fast lane, Nugent feels freshman Nick Korsgaden's year-round experience will be a great asset to the team. Leading the male swimmers are junior Brad Lindsey for butterfly; sophomores Todd Doughty for sprinting freestyle, Jeff Nichols for breast stroke and Dan Benson for freestyle; and promising freshman David Rexroth for freestyle and backstroke.
"My goal as a swim coach is not just for the kids to go out and want to beat other schools, but to have each kid go 100 percent, train hard and swim the best that they can," Nugent said.