Ready to make a splash

The Green River Wolves swimming team is training hard for their first meet.

Diving and assistant coach Rick Barker said this year there are about 26 swimmers and four divers who have decided to join the swim team.

For the past 10 days, the swimmers have been working on getting back into shape and improving their strokes, while the divers have been busy coming up with six different dives to be ready for competition.

The team has been putting in an hour of weight lifting before school; and after school they swim for about 2 1/2 hours each day to prepare for their first meet.

The Wolves will travel to Laramie this weekend to compete in relays Friday night and a pentathlon on Saturday.

Barker said the first couple of meets of the year are always tough on the team. They are still trying to figure out who is good at what event and where they need to make improvements.

Last year, the team lost several good swimmers to graduation, but they have a lot of returning swimmers and one returning diver. This year, the Wolves have about five seniors who will become leaders for the team. Barker said even though one diver is a freshman, he has dove in middle school for the past two years and brings experience to the team.

As for goals for the season, it's just too soon.

"At this point, it's hard to say. We're trying to see where we are at," Barker said.

He thinks Laramie, Kelly Walsh and the Gillette schools will be strong again this year, but one never knows.

"You never know who's got what," he said.

He said a team could get a group of great freshman or some of the upperclassmen may have worked all summer and fall to improve before the season starts.

"We've got a good group of kids," Barker said. "They've been working really hard."