Storm opens season tonight

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

At Hopkins County Central, second-year swimming coach Cheryl Vaughn thinks with her debut season behind, the 2008-09 campaign will begin strides ahead after a full calendar of studying and preparation.

The Storm swim team has practiced for four weeks and its preseason work will finally come to fruition in the squad’s regular-season opener at 5:30 p.m. today with a tri-meet against Muhlenberg North and Muhlenberg South at the Hopkins County Family YMCA.

“We have focused a whole lot more on getting conditioning in before our meets this time because we had a little more experience of how to instruct the strokes,” Vaughn said of her approach to this fall’s practices. “We really tried to work on getting a lot more yardage in and we hope that shows up in the meet times.”

Assistant coach Sophie French said with a year of experience now at disposal, the staff has realized the most vital aspects to focus on during the preseason.

“It’s all about technique,” she said. “We have done nothing for four weeks, but breakdown technique.”

French said for her, learning the very basics of swimming has become a key part to developing success, even away from the pool.

“We have to study, really study,” she said. “I’ve had to use Ellen, who lives with me of course, my daughter at home and say, ‘Look at this drill, this is what we want you to do tomorrow.’ ”

Central will be have to replace a lot of veteran experience with the graduation of five seniors: Daniel Cotton, April Duncan, Zach Ford, Lauren French and Lacy Reynolds.

Among those expected to be pivotal contributors this season will be captains Kain Bean, Ellen Cox, Ellen French and Cody Patterson.

For the girls, eighth-grader Linny Hooper and freshman Rebecca Spraggs will also be top returners.

Sophie French said Spraggs has improved greatly on her breast stroke and has been really impressed with Hooper’s progress from her summer involvement with a Hopkinsville swim club.

Hooper said she enjoyed working with the club and her focus to continued progress will be getting stronger off the blocks.

Ariel Bruce and Kathyrn Cartwright will also bring a bit of leadership to the table for the girls.

“They’re versatile,” Sophie French said of her returning corps. “They are our experience that we can depend on and we can put them in anything and they know what they’re doing.”

The girls team will boast quite a few more swimmers with 13 to the boys’ seven swimmers, but Vaughn has faith in their capabilities.

“We have some really good young kids here for the boys team that have worked really hard and we expect them to do good things,” she said.

Wesley Ipock represents the boys’ only senior, but enters his second year well-prepared after a fall season full of playing cross country, football and soccer.

Ipock did not practice until Monday, but said he has worked up his stamina from running and feels ready for today’s meet.

The coaches have little reason to doubt him after his first day performance.

“He’s such a tremendous athlete,” Vaughn said. “He’s probably going to make a little noise in whatever he does...He only knows one speed, 110 percent.”

Ipock will swim in freestyle and breaststroke events while Bean, a freshman, will participate in the 500 free.

As for learning how to improve in their team’s respective races, Vaughn and Sophie French said they attended a summer camp at Western Kentucky University and ordered instructional DVDs from former Auburn University coach David Marsh, who won several NCAA national championships with the Tigers.

At the camp, the swimmers learned how to complete successful turns, which can be a critical part of the race.

“If it’s neck and neck the whole race and you slip on one turn, you can probably count yourself out, I don’t care how strong you are,” Ipock said.

Sophie French said the DVDs helped the kids relate to what the coaches have tried to describe.

“They helped us break it down in a simple manner,” she said. “Some of the kids were really struggling with the turns and understanding what we were asking from them.”

Ellen French said she has identified the turn as an area she must continue to improve upon if she wants to experience a high level of success.

“If someone has really fast turns, it’s hard to keep up with them because their transition from stroke to stroke and 25 to 25 is really quick, so I’ve really been focusing on my turns this year,” she said.

Most of the swimmers admitted in addition to the camp and tapes, they learned a lot from observing U.S. Olympian Michael Phelps on TV while he performed this summer in Beijing.

“I watched him like a hawk,” Patterson said. “Anything he did, I tried to copy. The way his arms moved in his butterfly. It was just like clockwork, perfect.”

Cox and French said they enjoyed his attitude and saw it as an inspiration.

“He kept a high spirit, he was positive and wanted all those medals that he won,” Cox said. “He strived and he kept working and he knew he could do it and he did it.”

Central’s swimmers hope to draw from the energy of Phelps and utilize everything they have learned in the offseason and convert it into plenty of wins beginning in today’s tri-meet.