When the bell rings at 2:05, students rush out of the school to go to many different places — work, home, or sports. Most Fall athletes are fortunate to be able to practice right at the high school and right after school. This luxury is convenient, for it saves student-athletes a lot of time and money. However, Walpole Rebels Swimming and Diving is not so fortunate.
For years, Swimming and Diving has suffered due to lack of swimming facilities on the school’s premises. Usually, the team practices at Blue Hills Regional High School in Canton, which is about a twenty minute drive to practice. But this year, due to construction on that site, the Rebels practice location has been moved to Randolph.
The Blue Hills Regional High School is re-doing the pool deck and blocks, and because of this all, the teams that practice their during the fall and winter seasons have had to find an alternative place to practice.
Walpole head coach Cheryl Cavanaugh said, ” It was extremly hard to find a pool because there are not many pools around and most pools are aleady in use”. She had such a hard time finding pool space that at one point the only option the team had was practicing in Rhode Island or practicing before school in Westwood. Finally, after a long search and negotiating, Cavanaugh was able to get the Randolph High School pool.
For the rest of their season, the Rebels will be practicing at Randolph High School. The pool is extremely old and the water heater has been broken, which makes practicing difficult. Not only is the pool an inconvenience for the swimmers, but the divers are also having a hard time adjusting. Senior Captain Siobhan Kemple said, ” the board is really old and has been a struggle to use, because it does not give us as much height as we need.” Despite the fact that the Rebels face all of these problems it is still better than alternatives of having to practice in Rhode Island or having to practice before school.
Even with this difficult practice situation the Rebels have started the season off right by winning their last five meets. Junior Katie Smith, sophomores Hannah Phelan and Sam Chauvin and senior Captain Doug Stewart all have qualified for sectionals and states. Many other swimmers are improving their times also. Freshman Elizabeth Duseau dropped twenty seconds, a huge time shed, in her hundred back stroke at the last meet.
Stweart said, ” I am very happy with the diver and swimmer recent improvements”. The Rebels hope to continue their success as the season goes on despite the inconvenience of driving to Randolph every day.
