When it comes to the girls’ swim team it is obvious when an individual is successful but team success is not as easy to identify. “Every individual race counts towards the bigger goal of a team win, so you don’t want to let your team down,” said senior Caroline Murphy.

“Some people will tell you that it is [an] individual [sport] because most of the events other than the relays are individually swam,” said senior Joli Chaisson.

Unlike individual races, relays depend on how fast each of the four team members can swim. The relays in a swim meet are, the 200 freestyle relay, where each of the four team members swim 50 yards, 400 freestyle relay, with each of the members swimming 100 yards, and the 200 yard medley relay. The medley relay consists of each swimmer swimming 50 yards and each swims a different stroke: backstroke, breaststroke, butterfly, and freestyle.

“There’s more teamwork [involved],” said sophomore Misia Dyrkacz, who swims in the 50 yard backstroke of the medley relay. “I’m first [in the medley relay] and that puts a little pressure on me because I have to get a lead.”

“There are 11 events in girls swimming. While scoring differs from four lane pools like Minnechaug has to six lane pools, basically [in a four lane pool], a first place gets four points, a second place gets two points, and a third place gets one point,” said Murphy, a senior 500 freestyle and 100 backstroke swimmer. In a six lane pool, the scoring is six, four, three, two, and one points for each first, second, third, fourth, fifth finish, respectively. The points are then totaled up from each event and the school with the highest total points wins the meet.

More points can be gained when it comes down to relays, and those points often determine the outcome of a meet. “You score bigger points in relays, so to be a competitive team, you really need to have good relays,” said Coach Erik Mandell. In a four lane pool, points for relays are six points, three points, and one point, awarded to first, second, and third places, respectively, and in a six lane pool scoring is eight points for first place, four points for second place, and two points for third place.

Since the points awarded are imperative for a team to win, Mandell must strategize in order to make the strongest relay teams.

“It depends on who we’re swimming and what their strengths are, so I do plan ahead and I do my scouting, come in prepared. I try to know where the team’s strengths and weaknesses are and also I use a little bit of my crystal ball and see where [the other team] might use people,” said Mandell. “Especially if they have good swimmers on the other side, they might want to use their best people in different events, so there really is quite a bit of strategy involved in swimming. I try to anticipate where they might put people and I try to counteract that.”

Strengths of individuals on the team are able to be combined in relays so that the fastest team can be put together. “You really need to have good relays to have a good team,” said Mandell.