Swimmers seek strong regular season finish

CLOVIS - All good things must come to an end and today the Clovis boys and girls swim teams will wrap up their strong regular season in Hobbs.

While the Wildcats will be looking to add a couple final state-qualifying times, Clovis coach Vincent de Maio said the focus of today's meet will largely be on fine-tuning small details so the squads will be ready when the top prizes are on the line in the coming weeks at the district and state meets.

"We look at this as race preparation," de Maio said. "It's easy to go down and just swim and pick up some medals, so we think about race preparation and come in with specific goals for each swimmer. That's what we want them to do. We don't want them to go down there and 'oh, it's another meet.' It's not another meet, this is a race prep meet."

The Wildcats are just now starting their taper period in order to get ready for the state meet which will take place Feb. 18 in Albuquerque.

De Maio said during this time the swimmers will cut down on the distance swam at each practice, but maintain the same intensity, just in shorter amounts.

This is a time for the swimmers to work on details like their start off the blocks, turns, and relay exchanges, de Maio said.

"You sort of look at it like when you sharpen a knife, the very last thing you do is hone that, you hone that edge, and that's what we're doing now is just getting that edge ready to roll," de Maio said.

Today Clovis will face off against many of the same teams from last week's Artesia Invite, who are also the schools the Wildcats will see next week at the District 3 competition in Carlsbad.

"The difference is we swim different events so the kids all change events this week and (the other schools) will change some around too so they will see maybe some different kids in different events," de Maio said. "The outcomes won't change significantly team-wise or point-wise but it is a bit different so it gives our guys an opportunity, while it may not be their prime stroke, it is a stroke that they need to work on."

Sophomore Bella Zamora is looking forward to seeing how the competition adapts from week to week.

"It's funny to see how they race differently because in each meet you race a little bit different," Zamora said. "You have a meet where you do better, one where you do worse. Every meet is new. I guess we'll find out."

For the second week in a row de Maio will shuffle the relays with the goal of creating the most evenly-matched groups of four swimmers as possible.

"I think it will be fun and different because we're switching up the relays like we did last meet and we're putting some different people racing against each other, so it will be fun. I'm excited," Zamora said.

While the nerves are starting to build with the state meet just three weeks away, Zamora said the team is still focused on the task at hand.

"I think we're all getting nervous because state's coming up but we've all done the work. This season as a whole we've worked harder and improved as a team more than we ever have before, so I think we'll do really good," Zamora said. "We're nervous for state but we know we want to win Hobbs and we want to win district and those come first. We can worry about state after."