By Emily Coughlin, Staff Writer
The St. Bonaventure women’s swim and dive team have been excelling so far this season.
Sophomore diver Elena Rohr attributes her successes to the goals she set at the beginning of the season and the training that she has completed to be successful.
“At the beginning of the season I was coming off a back injury, so my personal goals at the beginning of season were all centered around recovery,” said Rohr. “Now that I have started to recover, I recently PR’ed (received her personal record) on both one and three meter when we went against Canisius.”
Coach Brian Thomas’s number one priority is to make sure the swimmers are healthy and are set up for success.
“It always seems like when expectations are maybe too low as a coach, you’re trying to bring them up, and when they’re too high as a coach, you are trying to balance that out as well, and they are always shifting,” said Thomas.
The Bonnies began their season with an outline of what their training looks like for the whole season and summer, said Thomas. Though the team tries to stick to the plans, Thomas revises the training every Sunday for the upcoming week based on who is injured and who needs to work on what.
Rohr said she likes the layout of practices and believes it is helping her a lot this year through her recovery.
“I am still working towards maintaining my goals and trying to raise my scores each meet by working on details at practice and attempting harder dives,” said Rohr.
Rohr said that the team’s goals haven’t changed much over the season, but they have changed immensely from last season to this season. She said that, with the success she and her teammates have reached already, they have the ability to pursue their goals by the end of the season.
“The team goals are definitely focused at moving up in conference rankings, and I can’t wait to see how our team does against our A10 rivals,” said Rohr.
Thomas’ goals for the team are a little different in the way that he holds team pride as a top priority, and scores second.
“Our overall goal is to have each swimmer as invested in it as I am, which is where we can produce some significant results, and we are really in the midst of it and are still working on it,” said Thomas. “It is one of the more difficult things, but once we get it, the results are the most rewarding.”
With investment comes success, which the swimmers are reaching through team encouragement and hard work during practice, said Thomas.
“We try to find a way to pull the swimmers in the right direction to give them consistency and set them up for success,” said Thomas.
Rohr said that a lot of her teammates have been pushing themselves and working hard this season, and it has already shown positive results during meets where the Bonnies cheer and encourage each other the whole way.
“I think the team has gotten a lot closer through success and is just like a big family going towards a common goal,” said Rohr.
The team has revised its original goals slightly due to its great successes already this season, said Rohr.
“We really hope we send someone to zones or NCAAs at the end of the season,” said Rohr.
The team motto this year has been “consistency,” which Thomas is trying to incorporate into training and meets as much as possible.
“As of now we are trying to get everyone into a more consistent pattern and trying to keep the things we do during practice the same as what we can achieve during meets,” said Thomas.
Thomas is excited to see what will happen at the meet this weekend because he believes it will be a good gauge for the swimmers to see where they are at.
“After this weekend, we can refocus on what we want to do in February and be as consistent as we can,” said Thomas.
The St. Bonaventure women’s swim and dive team will next be seen at the Akron Invitational Friday, Saturday and Sunday, Dec. 1-3.
