The Eastern swimming team is gearing up to start its new season. 

The men’s and women’s swimming teams have been practicing daily in Lantz Arena in preparation for their upcoming season. The team will have an exhibition meet this Saturday to help prepare for the season. Some of the swimmers even shared some of their own methods of preparation. 

Alex Laleian is a senior on the swimming team embarking on his last year. Laleian has been involved with swimming since he was five years old and spoke briefly about some of the work it takes to prepare for the season.  

“Personally, usually over the summer time I don’t really have enough time to go and swim at a pool just because I work full time, so usually I’ll try to get in the gym every single day and then I try to work on a lot of swimming-type movements or movements that will help with swimming,” Laleian said.

Alex stressed the importance of leg and shoulder work as well when it comes to swimming exercises. He also expressed some expectations that he has for the team and himself.

“For the team I have some really high expectations. We’ve had great energy in the pool at practice,” Laleian said. “It’s been a really good team atmosphere this year. I’m hoping that we beat our record last year in terms of wins and place better at conference this year and keep up this energy throughout the year. Personally I want to break the school record in the 200-fly, so I just got to get myself to get in shape and get after it.” 

Race Archibald is a sophomore swimmer on the team. Race has been swimming since he was six-years-old and competes in the breaststroke and backstroke events for the team. Race talked about preparation during the offseason by swimming and practicing technique. He expressed that he was eager to start the season and grow as a swimmer.

 “I expect to get better and have a better season then last year and drop some time,” Race said. “We got a young team this year, so I’m just looking to better everyone else as well as myself.”

Tyler Parrish is also a senior on the swimming team. Parrish started swimming around junior year of high school, and has not stopped since. He now competes in the 50, 100 and occasionally the 200 meter freestyle.  He spoke about some of the things he usually does to prepare for the season as well. 

 “A lot of lifting, a lot of cardio, so preseason just trying to stay in the water a little bit but focus on lifting,” Parrish said.

Tyler went on to talk about his expectations for the team.

 “We have a really strong freshman class, both sides male and female. Those additions are really going to push the program forward,” Parrish said.

Tyler explained that this year the team will face new teams and participate in more meets. This will all start with the intramural meet on Saturday. 

“The meet that’s happening on Saturday is just a intramural meet. We call it blue vs gray,” Parrish said. “We run it like a real meet and just compete against each other.” 

The team will host a meet at Padovan Pool at 8 a.m. on Saturday, Sept. 22nd.

Eric Hendrix can be reached at 581-2812 or [email protected]