Lady Mules swimming hopes to benefit from relays

For Beth Lewis and her Poplar Bluff girls swimming and diving team, it’s all about taking advantage of learning opportunities in 2023.

A young roster of Lady Mules continues to improve and especially in relays, so why not partake in today’s Southeast Missouri Conference Rec Center Relays on the campus of Southeast Missouri State University?

“It’s a fun event where they put relays together instead of swimming an event by yourself, you swim with your teammates,” Lewis said, estimating that about 10 different relays will take place. “It’s all the conference schools, but we don’t do rankings or placement for the conference.

“It’s not a true split, but the girls end up swimming faster. Any relay will make them participate even harder because they have a couple of other girls counting on them to do everything perfectly: Watch their turns and strokes and pick up their speed. It’s a nice break in the season for a break in the monotony of the same events. It’s fun and exciting and a different way to try and better your time.”

Lewis said the relays give kids a chance to have other opportunities to swim in other events.

“You swim three relays at a given meet, but we have definitely more than three,” Lewis said. “It gives the girls a different opportunity to swim their stroke in a relay. Kids love relays and the anticipation of their teammates touching the wall.”

Outside the basic relays, this event will include a progression relay of 200, 200 and 500 yards and longer relays involving the strokes.

“We haven’t swum a meet where we see all the conference schools,” Lewis said. “This gives our girls a good vision of what’s to come in about a month when we do swim the conference meet against everybody else. The girls are excited about their improvements, but now they are going to witness just how much faster they need to become in the next month.”