This past Wednesday, August 31, 2011, Seminole Aquatics Swim and Dive teams took on the Lake Mary Rams at Seminole’s Dale Aquatics Center.  Dark clouds perched over Seminole’s landscape, ominous and black.  Drum cadences reverberated from the football field where the marching band was practicing.  And although lightning threatened the swim meet earlier that day, the clouds finally parted, revealing a pleasant afternoon, and allowing the event to continue unimpeded.

With such a large team comprised of both swimmers and divers, most Seminoles were looking forward to the team’s success at the meet, against Lake Mary High.  An anonymous swim team member commented before the meet began, “I think we’re going to win this one.”  They certainly did.  Seminole came up with an easy first place, with boys scoring 246 to 58 for Lake Mary, and girls 219 to 84.

Seminole boasts around 55 swimmers, which offers great opportunity to make a big difference.  Head Swimming Coach Tony Ackerson explains that “every place scores points, [so] the bigger teams have a huge advantage.”  Additionally, Seminole’s diving team participated in the meet, scoring a number of points for the school, while Lake Mary did not bring any divers.

But Seminole clearly gave an outstanding performance at that first meet, even without the help of their sheer size.  Coach Ackerson emphasizes Seminole’s “depth,” which consists of a combination of the team’s size and its number of strong swimmers who train year-round. Ackerson tells The Seminole that “these are exciting times to be a swimmer or diver,” and that “a few individuals…are expected to score high at State” this season.  Junior and Seminole swimmer Prakash Sundar mentions that Seminole Aquatics is aiming for the district championship again this year.

The efforts of the school’s diving team were apparent during their portion of the meet.  Diving Coach Brittany Sanders explains the scoring system to readers, telling that each of seven divers must perform six dives each.  The dives are rated by difficulty, and the judges’ scores—up to a six—are multiplied by the difficulty for the dive performed.

The supportive crowd watched every dive attentively, cheering on the team after each dive.  All of the seven Seminole divers performed to rounds of applause, and scored high marks.  Sundar adds that “[divers] Trevor [Borenstein] and Justine [Jolicoeur] were beasts.”  All of the divers showed impressive aerobic performances on their one-meter drop to the water, and their accomplishments were obviously well-received by the judges.  Over 100 pictures and videos of the swimmers and divers are available in the posted gallery.

Many of the swimming events produced a wealth of audience involvement.  In the Girls’ 500-meter freestyle race, which proved to be a tremendous struggle between the competitors, the level of audience encouragement was exceptional.  Every lap of that difficult race was punctuated by cries of “Go!” or “Kick!” and, after much work, Seminole managed to finish first.

Seminole Aquatics is looking forward to a great season.  Sundar describes the state of the team before swimming one of his last events that day: “We have a really good team this year.”