The EDSS swim team participated in its first meet at the new Woolwich Memorial Centre last week, and the upgraded venue made a splash.
Vice-principal and swim team coach Dave Conlon heard a story from a Kitchener Collegiate Institute teacher who said that the team had not been too excited about coming to swim out in Elmira as they remembered the old pool facilities, but quickly changed their tune when they arrived at the new WMC.
“When they left the meet this week they asked, ‘Can we have all of our meets in Elmira?’” he said with a laugh.
The kids on Conlon’s team are also very happy about the improved facilities. Perhaps that figured into the team’s strong performance, finishing behind Grand River Collegiate and edging out KCI to grab second place. It was a good start to the season.
The team, which is made up largely of girls, and practices Mondays and Wednesdays after school ends, is still allowing new members to join, with Conlon adding it would be nice for a few more boys to register and round out the group. There are no official tryouts for students hoping to join the swim team, but competitors must be able to swim two lengths of the pool without stopping.
The efforts of the small group of dedicated swimmers on the team last year were rewarded in December when the EDSS swim team competed at the WCSSAA meet at the WLU pool in Waterloo. The relatively small team of about 20 swimmers matched skills with much larger teams to finish sixth overall out of 16 teams. This was one of the best finishes for the team in over 10 years of competing at the regional level.
“Last year was one of our more successful years,” noted Conlon. “We were matched up against some of the larger and more experienced teams, and we did well. I hope to be able to reach that level again this year with the new team.”
