Coyotes searching for 3rd straight West title

Talk about it

Two is good. Three is better.

The Williston Coyotes, a co-op of Dickinson and Williston swimmers, are looking for their third straight West Region title today in Mandan.

“I think it’s going to be really exciting,” Williston coach Thomas Wheeling said. “It’s definitely going to be a three-team race with Century and Minot. It should be really close.”

Dickinson side coach Kristi Roller hopes tapering down of practice distances allows the swimmers to cut down on times today.

“We’re hoping to do really well,” she said. “We’re going down in our yards and started our taper this week. We don’t want our best times yet, because the state meet is obviously more important than WDA.”

Roller is in her first year as the coach in Dickinson and she’s said it has been a little stressful.

“You’re in charge of these girls physical conditioning,” she said. “It’s 90 percent mental and 10 percent physical. If they aren’t mentality prepared, that’s not good and you want to be encouraging to them.”

Though cutting times down is always good, the excitement level is building for the state meet, which is just one week away in Grand Forks.

For some of the Coyote swimmers, this is the final chance to qualify for the state meet. Dickinson High senior Lauren Sneddon said that’s the most exciting part about this meet.

“Some of the girls get really excited when they qualify in something they’ve been trying for the whole season,” she said.

Excitement can be a distraction, but it can also be used for motivation. Roller is hoping to channel the excitement as motivation.

“When we taper, we get more rest,” she said. “When they have more rest, they have more time to think about their strokes and think about their technique.”

The West Region meet should prepare the Coyotes well for the state meet. Wheeling said three of top five teams in the state will come out of the West Region.

“I think WDA is a really good prep for state,” Wheeling said. “We are going to see a lot of good competition and I think that atmosphere is going to be a good test to see how we are going to stack up at the state meet.”

Tags: west region, sports, swimming, midgets, preps