by Beau Wicker
The season starts up for the area’s girls swim teams this week.
New coaches will be roaming the poolsides at Cass and Pioneer, while veteran Logansport coach Jon-Myckle Price returns to coach the Berries.
The following are season preview capsules of Logansport, Cass and Pioneer.
Logansport
The Berries return a veteran group, and Price is looking for an improved season from a year ago.
“I think we’re gonna be as strong, and hopefully with some development, stronger,” he said. “They set some goals the other day to get top four in the conference and top three or four in the sectional, obviously to have a winning record.”
Two-time state qualifier Peyton Zehner returns for her junior season. Last season she advanced to state in the 200-yard freestyle and as a freshman she advanced in the 50-yard freestyle.
“She’s working really hard early on. I think she’s got some personal goals of her own, and she’s really, really putting the work in to get to them,” Price said. “And so the other goal would be to get some people to join her at the state level. So hopefully Peyton will get back — I don’t even know if she wants necessarily the same events. But get her back to state and take maybe a girl or two or three or four or five with her.”
Senior Morgan McCloskey finished runner-up in the 200 free at the Warsaw Sectional last season, just missing a spot in the state finals.
“Mo McCloskey was our other closest last year. She was second behind Peyton,” Price said. “If we shuffle things around, maybe we could get two there. I don’t really know, because we don’t swim against our competition. We’re so far south from where a lot of them are, where a lot of the other teams are at, that we don’t see them. So we’ll see how it wraps up toward the end. But Mo McCloskey definitely has potential. She’s asking about swimming in college. She always works hard, so maybe we can get her in there.
“And then Jordan Graham, she has potential to maybe make it to diving state. She got to the regional last year and it was a really tough regional, but I know she put in a lot of work over the summer. So hopefully we can maybe get her to state too for diving, which that hasn’t happened in a long time.
“We’ve got some other girls who’ve got great experience. Ashley Fawcett’s a freshman who’s going to add a lot. Katie Clements, she’s strong and she had a great year last year, so hopefully she’ll contribute. And then we’ve got Emilee Branham, who was really a good contributor last year. We’ve got good leaders ... Emily Elkins, Frankie Layman-Lopez. We’ve got a good group.”
Cass
The Queenfish return their top three swimmers from a year ago and they have more than 30 girls out for the team for first-year coach Christa Plaster.
Cass’ top swimmers include senior Jade Sarver, junior Ellie Cain and sophomore Claire Pullen.
“They’re pretty consistent powerhouses,” Plaster said of the Queenfish’s top trio. “We have a strong team. I think we have a lot of depth this year. ... We’re building the program again. It should be a really good season.
“Kadee Dollar, a senior, we’re looking forward to really good times from her, especially in the backstroke. Hannah Johnson, one of our newcomers, has been swimming awesome times in the freestyle. We’ve got juniors who had good sophomore seasons returning in Katy Kincaid, Brooke Robison and Tara Tocco. And the Sullivan twins [Alex and Megan] are back as seniors. They’re our distance swimmers.”
Plaster was an assistant coach for the Cass boys team last season. She takes over for Haley Ramer, who stepped down from the post after having a child. Darla Bauer will be Plaster’s assistant.
“It’s nice to get back into the program,” Plaster said. “I used to swim for the Queenfish. It’s like coming back home. It’s a tradition. It’s something where once you’ve been a part of it, you try to stay tied to it.”
Plaster hopes to see some school records fall this winter.
“We’re trying to get our top medley team to beat the record up on the board from ’91, which was set by girls on my swim team,” she said. “We look for our team to come close if not beat some of the ’91 records on the board right now. And I’d love for anything to see some of our swimmers go to state this year.”
Pioneer
The Panthers have two new co-head coaches this year in Stacy Farrer and Crystal Stines.
“Both of us come from the Indy area, and we have a background in college,” Farrer said. “Neither of us have coached before, so I like it that we can share ideas about what we do at practice.
“This is our first year coaching and we’re learning a lot about coaching in general. We’re looking forward to the season and improving the program at Pioneer.”
The Panthers have just five girls on the team this year.
“We hope to improve everybody’s time from the beginning to the end of the year,” Farrer said. “I have high hopes for Shelby Englert, especially in the backstroke. Christine Baker is one of our distance swimmers. I think she can drop a lot of time in a couple distance events.”
