PREP SWIMMING

In Relays, It's A Delicate Mix

By MATTHEW POSTINS "Tampa Tribune" correspondent

Published October 2007

TAMPA - Fay Went has a nice problem.

The Sickles High girls swimming coach has the strongest girls relay team in Hillsborough County. The combination of Veronica Case, Katie Cook, Katie Westbrook and Carrie Foster hold the county's best times in each of the three relay events sanctioned by the FHSAA:

200 medley relay - 1:57.93;

200 freestyle relay - 1:41.15;

400 freestyle relay - 3:43.15.

'I'm lucky,' Went said matter-of-factly. 'I have a lot of fast girls.'

But fast isn't everything when it comes to fielding a strong relay team, one that can contend for titles in the district meets, which begin today.

A team's number of club swimmers can make a difference. So can chemistry between swimmers, and finding four swimmers who can proficiently swim the strokes necessary in the medley relay. Even the opponent in a dual meet can make a difference.

Jesuit coach Bill Shaffer admitted he sometimes separates his best swimmers - Vinny Donnelly and Andrew Werdine - to help develop other swimmers for future relays, but also because the matchup demands it.

'Against Plant I needed freestyle relays,' Shaffer said. 'Against King, I needed medley relays, and we have a breaststroker, freestyler, butterflier and backstroker. That's why we went faster in that dual.'

But every coach agrees four good swimmers won't get the job done if you want to be competitive in all three events.

'You need at least seven to eight swimmers,' Shaffer said.

So why is Sickles' quartet at the top of all three girls relays? Because the Tribune's Hillsborough County rankings are for the entire season. And Case, Cook, Westbrook and Foster have competed in all three relays together.

But at districts, they will swim the two freestyle relays. The reason? Swimmers are limited to two relays in district competition. That's why developing talent and depth is so important to earn the valuable double points in each relay at district.

'Having that base core of eight relay swimmers is what you must have to be competitive,' Newsome girls coach Joanna Grogan said.

Most of the area's best relays teams, admittedly, feature swimmers who also swim for club teams. One prime example is Newsome, which features its boys and girls relays in the top three of four events. About one-third of their team swims for Blue Wave at Brandon Sports and Aquatic Center. Donnelly swims with Blue Wave, too, along with Plant relay anchors Meg Anderson and Hillary Hahmann.

Hillsborough boys coach Tom Paloumpis estimated that 85 percent of this year's state meet participants also swim club.

Most club swimmers practice five hours a day, six days a week. That talent makes it difficult for teams with non-club swimmers to compete in relays.

Some coaches take different approaches in developing their relays, too. Went said she values individual swimmers and their events over the relays and allows her swimmers to choose their relays. So does Grogan.

'If they're swimming something they like, they're going to perform better,' Grogan said. 'We have a lot of kids that can swim different strokes, but I don't want to put them in a stroke they don't like.'

Shaffer spends the entire season developing swimmers to take up the extra legs necessary to keep his relays competitive, especially in the wake of losing two All-Americans from last season.

So while Shaffer has mixed and matched relay participants, Went's quartet has competed together all season. So has the Newsome boys team of Jason Taylor, Aleks Ans, Jason Waterman and Julian Waterman, who have the county's best 200 medley relay time entering this week. They've participated together for three years, and all four can swim all four strokes.

And that's where chemistry comes in.

'Since we're so close, I think there's a lot of chemistry between us as swimmers,' Taylor said. 'We swim and we train together every day, so we're always around each other. We don't have to prove ourselves like we're a new member of the team because we've swam together for so long.'

Chemistry can't save even a great relay team from making a mistake. Went's swimmers scratched from a relay at City Relays because of an exchange error.

But Went wanted her relay teams together all season for a reason.

'The timing is real important in district when you're talking about hundredths of a second,' Went said. 'If the timing is right it makes all the difference in the world.'

The medley relay, all the coaches agreed, is the hardest to field, so Newsome is fortunate. Some coaches struggle to find swimmers that have a mastery of the more technical strokes and are at the mercy of what their attendance zone provides them.

'Most of the time it's being blessed with what comes in,' Sickles boys coach Scott Parlett said.

The rest is a matter of training and practice.

'Everyone can swim free,' Shaffer said. 'You can find that anywhere. I can make a non-swimmer a sub-25 seconds in the 50 free. To make them a 26-27 second fly and legal, to make a breaststroker go 30-31 seconds, let alone the real good ones are around 28 seconds, it's a lot tougher to get that accomplished.'

Matthew Postins