The Mustang swim team is a tight knit group of very competitive swimmers, but even they are no match for team mother nature. Since the start of their swim season in November, they’ve only completed five meets. This has been due to the unpredictable weather complications here in the Washington D.C. area.

“[It’s been] extremely frustrating. I feel like we should have had more meets this year,” Freshman Tobias Ward said.

On December 17, 2016, icy rain made its way through the region, causing slick roads that made it unsafe for the teams to travel and a meet was canceled. Then again on January 7, 2017, bad weather was predicted and a meet was canceled. The swimmers understand the need to cancel a meet if the roads are unsafe, but it’s the team’s inability to reschedule that is frustrating.

The most important part of being on the swim team are the meets. At meets, a swimmer can display his or her skills and measure their improvement over a season. Unfortunately, they’ve only had five meets this season. These meets were on December 9, January 16, January 21, January 28, and February 4, each of which the Mustangs won against their opponents.

“I think that this has been an okay season so far,” coach Karen Hamill said. “The swimmers show what they can do at the meets, but due to the unpredictable weather, there haven’t been many opportunities. I have been quite frustrated by this year’s weather predictability and lack of meets, though.”

Unlike meets, the team’s practices have kept a regular schedule. With the coaches working their swimmers hard and setting up intense sets, Coaches Karen Hamill, Melissa Raeder, and Genevieve Jordan make sure each lane of swimmers are challenged. This is not an easy task since the team showcases a variety of swimmers at different levels of skill.

With only one more post season meet on February 16 this year, the Mustangs will have to work hard to prove that even without meets, they can compete at the highest level in their division as they have done in the past years.