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By Naftalila Flatte, City High

IOWA CITY – Although the City High girls’ swim team has only 17 members — 16 swimmers and one diver — they’re excited about this season.

Throughout the season, the Little Hawk have and will swim against teams with upwards of 40 swimmers, but they aren’t letting that faze them.

“Having a smaller team is better, “ sophomore Annie Hartley said, “because we all know each other better. When you’re on a big team, you don’t know all the people, so it can be slightly awkward.”

The team swims a total of approximately 6,000 yards in the pool everyday, and sometimes does more than 9,000 yards on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The swimmers also run in the mornings and lift weights before swimming after school.

“The hardest part is the commitment,” said freshman Alix Sharp. “We do it every day for about 5 hours!”

Sharp also said the best part of swimming is the feeling of dropping time, which often happens at the last meet of the season, known as the swimmer’s “taper” meet.

The swim team isn’t only close on the pool deck, however. Randi Pitzen, the other senior co-captain, said that her favorite part of swimming was the team aspect.

“I love the team dinners and gatherings,” Pitzen said. “It’s just really fun to be a team, and its a great team to be on. We’re all really close.”

The team has a dinner before each of their home meets, after practice on Mondays, to get pumped up for their meet on Tuesdays.

“I like being a part of something where, every single day, we all go through the exact same grueling, awful thing,” Vargason said, “but at the end of the workout, we can come back to the locker rooms and talk, laugh, and just be a team.”