All most teams want is to go to playoffs or to win their section. All that the swim team wants is to find a new coach and reopen the FHS pool. Struggling to keep their team alive, the swim team can only hope for the best. “There is hope,” Athletic Director John Rosa said. Since the pool is closed, the swim team now practices for meets at the Sunrise Pool in New Brighton. After a long day at school, some swimmers have to hop on a bus for about an hour just to arrive at the pool. Sophomore Casum Matlick said that the long travel time is an annoyance, but in the end, it is all worth it. The reason for the long ride is due to the fact that the swim team rides a specific bus that drops off normal students. After this bus finishes its route, it heads straight to New Brighton for the swim team to practice. With all of the effort that is put into just getting to the swimming pool, why keep swimming? “It’s a good workout and it’s really healthy for you to swim. So it’s just kinda worth it,” Sophomore Lauren Dubovi, first-year swim team member, said. “It’s all a bunch of hard work. There is resting time, but we have really intense workouts,” Dubovi said. She believes this is the hardest part about swimming. She feels her muscles are not as strong as they could be, which propels her to keep swimming. Matlick has very fond memories from being a part of the swim team. He said his favorite one, though, would be from last year. “On the bus ride going to one of the meets, Cole Leonberg had on a helmet. While walking into the meet, Sam Schweinsberg had the helmet on with goggles; he ended up walking into a wall,” Matlick said. Training hard and being the best are just two of the team’s goals for this year. They hope to make it to MAC’s and possibly even WPIAL’s. The difference between WPIAL’s and MAC’s is the skill level of the swimmers. To be invited to WPIAL’s, the athletes have to have certain times in their particular events The team is also trying to get better and accumulate more people for the team. There are not many members on the team, which makes practice different from past years. Matlick said that he gets more workout time because there are less people in the lanes, which allows you to go faster than before. With all of these wishes, one has at least come true. New starting blocks have been ordered and should be coming in soon. “It’s a process,” Rosa said.