The Pendleton Heights swimming program has been growing in the last several years, and coach Jeff Maydak has played a big part in that.
The girls team is having another good season, while the boys continue to struggle because of a lack of participants.
But the Arabians are focused on improving and accomplishing as much as they can this season.
Pendleton News reporter Justin Albers talked with Maydak to find out his thoughts on the season and the performances of some of his top swimmers.
1. Your girls team is performing very well so far this season and looks poised to put some individuals in the state finals. Talk about their progress this year.
Our team is a bit smaller than in the past so depth has been an issue. That has put more pressure on everyone to perform up to their capabilities every event, each meet.
Fortunately, the girls have met this challenge more times than not and several have picked up the slack when others might have had an off night.
Our immediate goals are to perform well at the conference championships on Jan. 17, which should allow us to compete for the HHC title.
We'll look past that meet to sectionals and beyond after Jan. 17.
2. Autumn Brown and Nikki Weston have led your team like you expected they would. How much do they mean to the team on a day-to-day basis?
Both Autumn and Nikki lead the team by example in the way they conduct themselves in practice. Both work extremely hard in practice; hopefully the rest of the team makes the correlation between hard work and their results.
3. The boys team has had another difficult year, but they are improving. How do you motivate them to keep coming back each day and working as hard as the day before?
The great aspect about a sport like swimming is that goals are malleable to the situation.
We always focus on our individual performances striving to improve but some meets we may focus more on winning events if we think we'll be competitive as a team.
The main problem we have with the boys team is numbers.
We have some talent, just not enough bodies. I think we showed that admirably in the Shelbyville Relays meet last month where we finished second out of six teams. The format of that meet hides some of our depth issues.
4. You just finished Christmas break practices, a stretch the swimmers call the most difficult of the year. How did that go, and how will that work help the kids down the road?
I think we had a great few weeks of practice since our last meet (on Dec.13).
Of course, the proof is in the pudding so we'll see how the kids respond early out of break with three dual meets in eight days prior to conference.
5. From what you've seen from teams around the state, who do you think will pose the biggest threat to Brown and Weston in the postseason?
Indiana is one of the most competitive state as far as swimming and diving is concerned — we would have had a few state champions last year in other states.
Given the competition in our sectional, our focus is to perform up to our abilities and achieve automatic qualifying times for state.
From there, it's really a matter of handling the pressure of state and trying to maintain times from sectional.
Most swimmers do not swim as well at state.
Those who do are the ones swimming on Saturday in the final and consolation heats scoring points for their schools.
6. Talk about your freshman diver, Hannah Cochran, and how impressed you've been with her.
Hannah started the season well, winning in each of the first three meets.
Her best performance probably came at Richmond when she battled back from a failed first dive to almost pull out first place.
Those remaining five dives were the best she's dived so far.
She's been a bit inconsistent since then, but we think her best is yet to come.
We really look for all of our divers to score big points for us in all of our meets and conference will be no different.
Pendleton News
January 7, 2009
Sports (Jan. 7): Maydak pleased with swimmers' progress
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