Even with a young and small team, the St. Paul Academy and Summit School girls swim and dive team has high hopes for the season.

The swim and dive team is led by senior Captains Cait Gibbons and Maya Smith. “There are nine people on the team and the oldest person other than Cait and me is a freshman; everyone else is in middle school, so it is a very young team,” Smith said.

The team is a co-op with Highland Park High School, but doesn’t always compete with them. The dive team is also a co-op with Highland Park, but practices with Cretin Derham Hall at St. Catherine’s University. “It’s a really fun team, even though it’s small, but that means we get to know the team really well.” freshman Abby Lanz said. Lanz is the only SPA member of the three person dive team.

This year the swim team has a new head coach, Katy Vandam, who previously coached the SPA/HP co-op of the boys swim and dive team.

“We were really close to our old coach, but [Coach Vandam] really helped the boys team and I’ve already seen the improvement in my own swimming,” Smith said. This new coach has brought some changes, one of them being that she has taken away morning practices.

Even though the team is fairly young, Smith is confident that they will do very well this year. “There are nine teams in our division and we normally place 4th, but this year I think we can place 3rd. Even though our team is young, everyone is willing to try hard and is very dedicated.” Smith said.

The team won their first meet and feel hopeful that they will win more.

This story was originally published in September 2015 print issue of The Rubicon.