by Liv O’Hara ’25
USN’s swim team began the season with the loss of important seniors, like Kara Grace Hess ‘23 and Jacob Rothman ‘23, and the addition of a new coach and eager freshmen. This year’s swim season has featured many new additions and changes.
“We have new coaches, we’ve got new freshmen, we’ve got a new practice schedule, it’s all pretty new,” Dhruv Reddy ‘24 said.
Although there have been adjustments the Tigers remain a successful team. The swim team has come away from early season meets with fast times, new personal records, and region and state meet qualifications.
A host of swimmers, including Tate Barbieri ‘25, Sawyer Beckwith ‘25, Jack Fruin ‘27, Kathrine Fast ‘27, Mark Luschen ‘24, Dhruv Reddy ‘24, Kailyn Womer ‘24, and Lin Zheng ‘26, have all made regional qualifying times in their events. And Olivia Barbieri ‘25, Leo Frein ‘25, Anna Hulan ‘25, Olivia Schwarz ‘24, and Aurelia Sloane ‘27 and have all qualified for the State meet already.
At the second divisional meet, the girls’ team won first place and the boy’s team got second. At the Sewanee Snowball Invitational on December 3, the girls team placed third out of 16 teams and the boys placed fifth out of 14 teams.
Although many key team members graduated, the Tigers have been able to recruit many eager and talented freshmen swimmers and have a large roster to show for it.
Team member Dean Stevenson ‘26 noted this.
“We lost some of our good swimmers, but we gained a lot of new ones,” Stevenson said.
Another key difference this season is the new head coach, Brent Crosby, who replaced last year’s head coach, Emily Khan.
Swimmer Sawyer Beckwith ‘25 shares his excitement about Coach Crosby.
“[Crosby] is helping us improve a lot,” Beckwith said.
Coach Crosby shared excitement about the season thus far.
“I think [the season] is going really well,” Crosby said. “We’ve had a lot of [time] drops, a lot of improvement so far in the season…we’ve already got a handful of state cuts and several region cuts.”
Looking ahead to the second half of the season Crosby wants to help the team peak at the right time in the postseason.
“[We aim to] get as many region and state qualifyings as we can and then place as high at those meets, especially in the relays, as we can,” Crosby said.
Despite the many changes to the coaching staff, practice schedule, and roster, the Tiger swim team continues to perform well and will look to be at their best at the region and state championships in January and February.
