Gig Harbor girls swim in drought until WIAA’s Season 3 in March

In 2019, the Gig Harbor High School girls swim team finished its season coming in 12th place at the Class 3A state championships for the third straight year.

With a good crop of returning swimmers and junior Shaye DiMatteo continually improving her diving, the Tides were in good shape for another run at the state championship.

However, the year 2020 had a different plan. Like almost everywhere else in the world, the Tides were put on the sideline as the global COVID-19 pandemic took hold and forced an indefinite hiatus on normal life.

Unfortunately, it came at the cost of the spring season of high school sports including girls water polo. The cancellation left many seniors without their final year of athletics at the high school.

“We haven’t done anything since March 12. It was hard, because we had some girls that were fortunately already committed to colleges,” said coach Mike Kelly. “It’s always fun to work hard and test your skills against the competition. They never had that opportunity.”

In the past, there would be a lot of turnover between water polo and swimming. The same core group of swimmers would feed from spring water polo to the fall swim season allowing them to cycle right into training programs Kelly laid out.

Again, the shifting landscape of a world dominated by health concerns due to a worldwide pandemic forced any and all high school athletes to stay at home away from facilities. No swimming, no diving, nothing for the incoming swim team.

The Washington Interscholastic Athletics Association has restructured the seasons, however. The boys swim team will begin their journey on Dec. 28 and end in March while the girls will begin March 1 and in May.

“It’s going to be real interesting, we don’t know what is going to be happening at the end of December,” Kelly said. “As far as the preseason training, we may get that going. I’m waiting for the environment to become safer than it currently is. A lot of that is how our community responds to the suggestions on how to bring the numbers down.”

As Kelly waits, he has had contact with the senior swim captains about the yearly apparel and suits the team will have for the upcoming season.

If and when the day comes that the swimmers can hop back in the pool, Kelly is making sure that they are keeping up with their exercises in the off season.

“What I suggested is that they maintain their dry-land physical fitness and really emphasized that they try to maintain their flexibility with their range of motion,” he said. “Hopefully they’re doing that. Some of them are really frustrated that they can’t get in and work out. They’ll try swimming in the Puget Sound but it’s so darn cold.”

Like the other sports, there will be a lot of restrictions on what the swimmers can and cannot do. It boils down to safety and if there is a lack of cooperation from even one person, it can jeopardize the season.

Because swimming is an indoor sport, it will be impacted much differently than football or soccer. Individual swimmers are at a lower risk being around less people when starting their heat whereas relay swimmers would have a harder time following distancing rules.

“You’re talking about a swimming relay team where the first goes off the blocks and the other three are expected to wear their masks right up until they go off the blocks,” Kelly said. “Then you get out of the pool, you’re supposed to put a mask on and then you’re supposed to be socially distant on the pool deck and that’s so darn tight in terms of space.”

Whether or not there will be a season has yet to be seen. Reducing the number of people on the pool deck to maintain social distancing is a tall order for the WIAA but they may have a solution.

Currently, there is talk of implementing a system where dual meets between the schools are held without a higher risk of exposure called ‘postal meets’.

Essentially, the Tides would do all of their events at their high school and the opponent can post their times from their pool for comparison. The fastest time would win and score as if they were in the same pool at the same time.

“I’m not sure how exciting that will be. But if that’s what we’ve got, that’s what we’ll take,” Kelly said. “I don’t see them doing that for the state meet because there is an imbalance of quality pools out there. You may have a district meet like that, but I think we just have to show a lot of patience in these trying times.”

This new normal will take time getting used to by everyone it effects. Kelly and his team will continue to stay as flexible as they can and when they can hop back into the pool, they’ll feel like life is getting back to normal.

This story was originally published September 29, 2020 at 6:00 AM.