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Nearing the end of the pool, senior Nicholas Proksel shoves water out of his way to reach the end. Proksel finished third in the 100-meter butterfly race, finishing with a time of 01:12.13.

Traveling just down the road, the Gretna swim and dive team faced off in a dual against Millard West High School (MWHS) on Dec. 11, for their third meet of the season. They ultimately lost with a combined girls’ and boys’ score of 162-202 over 24 events and a diving portion. 

“This is a hard meet, because this is one of our first really fast meets,” JV/reserve coach Allison Bertolini said. “But I think that the kids are doing really, really well. They’re tired, but they’re really pushing through.”

The varsity head coach, Kari Meister, had similar thoughts on the swimmers and their performance.

“They’re being very consistent,” Meister said. “They’re either staying right on their time, or they’re dropping time.”

Senior and team captain Nicholas Proksel swam four events and says that practice from the start of the season has helped him prepare for these meets.

“Especially coming from summer, the beginning of the school year, just getting back into shape, getting into each day, mentally preparing, it helps,” he said.

While the teams’ techniques and physicalities are improving, the coaches always push a certain mindset on the swimmers as well, so they are able to have the right mentality to do new and harder things.

“Positivity all the time,” Bertolini said. “We are very strict about how we’re not complaining. Swimming is a very mental sport, so you really need to make sure that everything you’re thinking is positive, even if it’s never going to be all the time, we try to push it as much as we can.”

Meister agrees and says that she has seen the culture with the swimmers throughout the season.

“They’re doing a great job coming together, pushing each other to do their best, asking for feedback and how to improve,” she said. “They always lift each other up and encourage each other. So they’re a big one team, you can’t tell who’s Gretna High and Gretna East on this team.”

The swim and dive team faces off against Lincoln Standing Bear in another dual tomorrow at 4:30 p.m. at the Gretna Crossing YMCA.