After a tough placement in the Fort Zumwalt tournament the girls are looking to take their A-game to Francis Howell High on Friday. On Saturday the team was expecting to do much better than they were placed. The team placed fifth in the tournament which was a big blow to the girls morale. Coach Jessica Nettles however, thinks that this disappointing placement can make the girls to push harder.

“The girls were disappointed with how they performed this weekend, but I think that this will make them push harder to win against Howell,” said Nettles.

So far the girls have been practicing very hard in the pool with multiple practices during the week getting harder and harder. Coach Nettles wants the team to beat Howell mainly because they are one of two teams that beat them last year and she knows the girls want to beat Howell too because of the rivalry.

“I don’t know if us coaches want us to beat them more than the girls, but I think all of the girls including the freshmen want to beat Howell,” said Nettles.

As always, there is a bigger desire to beat schools that are in the same district to earn bragging rights.

“If we can beat howell it will be great I know we have the potential to,” sophomore swimmer Megan DiNardo said.

Not only is there bragging rights to gain, but there is also a lot of challenges to overcome. Howell beat them last year and this year with a young and new team many of the swimmers feel that they can beat Howell.

“I think most of the relays will be the hardest part for the team, because howells relays are usually pretty fast,” freshman Sydney Lechner said.

The team faced Howell earlier in the year in a practice meet and swam mini-competitions against them. One of the areas that lost was the relay team.

“I think that overcoming the negativity from Saturday will be the toughest part on saturday, the whole team took the bad placement as a big blow to us,” DiNardo said.

This drive to beat long time rival and overcome a bad placement will hopefully propel the team to another win.