Girls Swimming: Small but fierce

Two words to describe the Bettendorf Girls Swim team? Small and young. Losing 10 seniors, and only having a group of 17 girls, 6 of those being freshmen, the Bulldogs are  adapting to a different team makeup this year. 

“The first meet was good, we swam in Dubuque. We got third out of eight teams. It’s been going pretty well overall,” said Alyssa Witt, a four-year varsity member.

Witt explained how she believes the young team is still performing well and she still has high hopes for the season’s outcome.

“I would say from here on out, we can win every dual meet that we have left. We want to qualify as many people as we can for state, hopefully five to eight girls,” said Witt.

As of now, the Bulldogs have won all but one dual meet. And while the Bulldogs seem to be performing well with short numbers, it has also been a negative factor.

“We lost to PV this year because of our lower numbers, they just have more depth than us,” said Riley Wehr, another four-year varsity member for the Bulldogs.

 In terms of actual swimming, Wehr explained that Coach Mike Ahrens has been having the team work on more explosive work off of the blocks and turns.

“We have been keeping the smaller things in check because those can make the biggest difference,” Wehr said.