The Bakersfield College swim teams have been swimming tired at their latest events, according to head coach Charlie Pike. Yet, Pike has a plan for the swimmers.
“I’ve been putting them in different off events. Try to mix it up because sometimes if you swim the same events over and over and over again, you’re going to get burned out on it.”
Pike added, “It’s good to step back and leave main events for a while. It makes them hungrier to come back and do it when they do it at conference.”
Pike reflected on the current swim season and the tapering off of the swimmers’ times.
“We train so hard during the year that the whole idea of the taper is to let your muscles recover and get some rest. We’re doing maintenance so that they don’t build any muscle – just stay where they’re at without getting too tired.”
Pike said about the tapering, “It’s going well; we started our tapering out because [Western State] conference [championships] is next Thursday (April 22) in Santa Clarita.”
Pike added that no college knows who qualifies for state until the Sunday night after conference, because they take the top 16 swimmers in the state. The swimmers with the best times overall in the season are selected. Pike said that he is hopeful that he will have a women’s relay team at conference qualify for state. Pike added that he doubts that he will have a men’s relay team qualify for state.
Pike is sure that Katie Lopes and Bridget Alexander are “close to state meet. I’m eighty percent sure that they’re going to qualify individually,” he said.
Pike also gave praise to Sara Brady, Katherine James and Karina Nafarrate who are all relay swimmers, along with Lopes and Alexander.
“You put all those girls together on relays and they really crank it up,” Pike said proudly.
Pike talked about the downfall of the men’s team this season.
“I got a lot of freshmen guys this year. I only had two returning swimmers so that made it tough on us.”
Pike said about the controversial suits that were ruled out this season, “They banned those tech suits. Last year, they had full body suits – those are out now.”
Pike explained, “The girls’ suits can’t go past the knee or shoulder. The guys’ suits can’t go above the navel and has to be above the knee so they can still wear a jammer but they can’t wear the full pant suit.”
Pike said there was a difference in times last year due to the suits at the state championships but not by much.
“I think the times at state last year were a little bit faster than normal.”
“Not a whole lot, but enough to open the door for kids that wouldn’t have been able to do it last year.”‘
The WSC swimming championships are at College of the Canyons April 22-24.