Missed practices and rescheduled meets for the girls swim team have come with the abundant snow days and canceled after-school activities the weather has forced upon the district. Three meets have been rescheduled due to snow, taking over days the team is supposed to practice, and about 12 practices have been canceled as a result of bad weather.

“It’s hard when we have a week of meets and no practices, because meets don’t help as much,” junior Katherine Wolf said. “We don’t get as much speed work in.”

This lack of practices has not made any swimmers gain time on their events; however, according to Coach Jessica Graslie, they have not dropped time either.

“If we want to decrease times, we have to practice,” junior Luta Young said. “The lack of practices affects us, but we just have to pull through.”

A few girls swim for club teams, so they are able to practice with them when school practices are canceled. In addition, the team has added some Saturday practices to make up for lost practice time.

“All the days off school are really hurting our practice schedule. Any time we’re out of school, we cannot practice or have a meet per district policy,” Coach Graslie said.

The swimmers are currently preparing for GACs, which will take place Feb. 11-13. In addition, they will compete against Fort Zumwalt East on Friday and Fort Zumwalt North and Fort Zumwalt South in a tri-meet on Monday.

“I think the girls will still do very well in the next two meets,” Coach Graslie said. “Myself and the other coaches are more concerned about GACs.”

Normally, the team would train hard until the week before conference and then taper, or gradually decrease the difficulty of practices, the week before GACs. However, due to many missed practices, the swimmers did not get the chance to taper.

“Since GACs are next week, it’s harder to prepare for them,” Wolf said. “A week before [GACs] we’re supposed to be tapering, but we haven’t had many practices.”

The teammates are still working hard to do their best at the conference meet. They will have two practices and two meets before GACs next week.

“They’re doing the best they can with the circumstances,” Coach Graslie said. “We’re just going to push through and do the best we can.”