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Demons get home swim meet

Phil Sandoval

After eight years as a guests at opponents’ pools, the Glenwood Springs girls swim team gets its first chance to roll out the welcome mat this afternoon.”I’m so excited,” said freshman swimmer/diver Jessica Betts. “I can’t believe we have our own pool now. Having our first home meet in my freshman year is going to be great. I’m counting down the days.”The countdown ends at 4 p.m., when the Demons dive into competition against Western Slope rivals Montrose, Montezuma-Cortez and Aspen.The team started practicing in the new facility at the Glenwood Community Center earlier this month. The team’s response to the move from the outdoor Hot Springs Pool has been positive.”It’s a good pool and great to swim in.” said junior Jennifer Betts, Jessica’s older sister. “It feels a lot different practicing in it because we’re so used to the hot water at the Hot Springs Pool. “It’s changed a lot of how we do things and how we get ready for meets because it gives a lot more time to get our practice yardage in and practice our flips turns and dives.”Moving to the indoor facility shifted team workouts from afternoons to 5:30 a.m. But the excitement over new facility offset the need for early-morning wake-up calls, explained Lyndsey Snyder. “I am so happy we are at the new pool,” Snyder said. “I didn’t like the Hot Springs at all. It was so hard to practice there because the water was so warm. The change to a regular pool is worth getting up at 4 in the morning and leaving for Glenwood at 4:30. Its completely worth it.”Snyder, one of the team’s captains, is one of two Rifle High School students who make the daily drive to Glenwood for team workouts. She and freshman Shannel Squires, along with two Colorado Rocky Mountain School students, compete for the Demons because their schools do not offer swim teams.Sophomore Emily McDonald is just as thrilled about the move and the pool’s state-of-the-art equipment as her teammates. But the best part of hosting a meet, the sophomore said, is the community gets to watch the team perform. “The entire town’s going to be there – I know it,” McDonald said. “I think its going to be a great experience, because the community and the swim team has worked so hard to get a pool. Now that we do, we’re going to show everybody that we can swim well.McDonald said having townspeople in the stands backs up what they have been able to learn only from word-of-mouth recaps or newspaper accounts on the team in the past.”(The town) knows about us winning districts, but they don’t really know about us firsthand,” she said. “So I think it’s going to be great to show everybody what we can do.”


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