Dogies dive right in to the season

Sonja Karp
NLJ Sports Reporter
 
The Dogie swim team is taking off right where they left off last year as they graduated no one from last season’s squad. While last season was somewhat of a rebuilding year, head coach Doug Scribner noted that the experience his team built over the last 12 months is already revealing itself in a positive manner.
“We lost a couple of strong swimmers two years ago, and last year we really solidified as a team,” he nodded. “That has carried over to this year, so we’ve had a really strong start. Everyone is excited, they know what their goals are and have been working hard at achieving those goals.”
An added element that has created an optimal practice environment for the men is that several members of the Lady Dogies team have been in the pool practicing as well, as they will be competing at the Gillette Invitational in the women’s category. 
“It’s great to have the girls there because they really help with motivation for the boys,” Scribner smiled. “They push each other and it gives them more people to swim against, so that has really added to practice.”
Back in the pool again this year are seniors Zach Benshoof, Kaden Curren, Garrett Merchen and Dalton Parsons. They are joined by juniors Austen Kenney and Jae Hyun Lee, sophomores James Cox and Conrad Prell, and new to the team this year are freshmen Robert Humes and Travis Scribner.
Merchen, Kenney and Cox return as the squad’s state qualifiers in the 100 Breaststroke, 100 Freestyle and 100 Backstroke respectively and Scribner feels confident they will repeat this season with another appearance at the State Meet in February.
Though he missed qualifying for state in the 500 Free by a mere one second, Prell is poised to get under the 3A time early this year, according to Scribner
“Conrad worked a great deal of last season trying to come back from a knee injury, and he only missed the mark by a second,” he explained. “He’s coming off of a good cross country season this year and is back to 100 percent, so I expect to see him qualify right out of the gate.”
Prell is also interested in diving, which he began to work on at the end of last year, but didn’t have enough dives ready in order to compete. However, Scribner and he have been working on more dives and are planning on debuting at the home meet on the 14th and 15th of this month.
The Breaststroke and Freestyle are the strongest strokes for Benshoof, and he has established the goal of qualifying in the 200 and 500 Free. Parsons’ strength and focus is the Backstroke, Lee’s is the Breaststroke, while Humes and Scribner are strong in the Freestyle. Scribner is also strong in the Breaststroke so coach Scribner anticipates he will make a good sprinting partner for Kenney.
Curren suffered an injury over the weekend, so it is unclear when or if he will return to competition.
“Austen managed for the girls this year, so he has been working on his Freestyle for a while now,” Scribner began. “He also attended a camp last summer with James, so they grew a lot over the summer.”
The potential for putting together good relay teams is also a reality for the team. 
“We have two really strong breaststrokers, so with that I think we have a pretty good chance at having a strong medley relay which I’m excited about,” Scribner exclaimed. “We should also have several for the 200 and 400 Free relays. My challenge for the guys to think about is that we need four people at 26 seconds and four at 1:00 for each so they know that and will be working toward that.”
There has been a schedule change for the first weekend of competition. The team was going to be in Gillette, but they have opted not to host the meet. As such, the squad will instead go to Powell for a quadrangular on Friday and on to Cody for an invitational on Saturday.