Last season’s constant switching between morning and evening practices wore down the Durango High School swim team.
The Demons’ usual home, the Fort Lewis College pool, was being renovated, and the Demons had to use the Durango Recreation Center when they could.
This year, the FLC pool is open for practice, and DHS head coach Kathryn Ross is relieved.
“Last year was rough. I feel like we definitely had a lot of girls drop halfway through the season because of the practice times last year,” Ross said. “This year is really nice – the flexibility with the pool.”
The Demons are taking advantage of that flexibility early by hosting their first meet of the season at 4 p.m. Friday at the Fort Lewis College pool. They’ll swim against Southwestern League foes Grand Junction, Montezuma-Cortez and Montrose in addition to Piedra Vista (Farmington).
“It’s really exciting to be able to have our families and our friends cheer us on for our first meet,” said DHS senior Bryn Joyner, daughter of Tom Joyner and Shalley Parmenter. “It’s really nice to have people to cheer for you.”
Joyner is one of four returning swimmers from last season’s state meet. DHS junior Anne Mummery is the only returning individual competitor after the team lost senior Brooke Kniffen, now at Hawaii. But Elli Earl, Joyner and Hailey Warren all competed on relays at the state meet.
“It was a huge experience for us. We didn’t have very much competition just in the Western Slope, so it was really eye-opening to be able to compete with those Front Range teams,” said Warren, daughter of Melody Warren.
In order to avoid that sense of shock this year, Ross added a new meet to the DHS schedule for the first time in her three years as head coach — the Cheyenne Mountain Invitational, Dec. 19-20 in Colorado Springs.
“We usually stick to Western Slope meets during the season, except for state,” Ross said. “I remember my first year coaching, a lot of the girls felt really strong all season and we got to state and it was shocking to them. They did better at district and dropped off at state, and I think a lot of it had to do with competition levels. The Cheyenne Mountain Invite is a great chance for the girls to get pushed.”
That mind-set has pushed the Demons to set their goals high. Ross wants to return all of her state qualifiers to the state meet and add as many as possible.
Some of those new qualifiers may come from new additions such as Joci Earl and Mira Joyner, who spent time with the Durango Swim Club before joining the high school team.
“I’m looking forward to all of the relays and hopefully sending them all to state. We have some really fast freshmen coming up,” Joyner said. “It’s going to be really cool to see how many relays we can take to state.”
kgrabowski@durangoherald.com
