March 11, 2016
SPORTS
Blueprint
11
Sam Dumford blows competition out of the water at state By Joe Stellato, Editor-in-Chief Print Senior Sam Dumford stood alone as the only swimmer from DGS at the IHSA state competition at Evanston High School, but he didn’t leave empty handed. Dumford claimed third place in the 50 freestyle breaking his own school record with a time of 20.98 seconds and also placed 11th in the 100 freestyle with a time of 46.56 seconds. “I’m super happy with [my effort]. Of course I could be really knitpicky about turning over quicker, finishing longer, but in the end, it’s third in state, and I’m happy with it,” Dumford said. Dumford earned a trip down to the IHSA state competition for boys swimming on account of his qualifying times for the 100 freestyle of 46.65 seconds and a 50 freestyle time of 21.24 seconds, the previous DGS school record before he broke this record at the state meet. Dumford is familiar with the environment of state competition after placing 23rd in the 50 freestyle last year. He shared his feelings before going back to the big meet. “Coming back from the state meet last year, I’m excited to go again and prove myself this time. It’s an exciting meet with over 2,000 people in one gym. It’s just electric. I’m excited,” Dumford said. For his second straight appearance at state, Dumford expected his times to drop even more -- which is exactly what they did. His time in the 100 freestyle dropped by over a second and earned him honors and 11th in state. Dumford recently committed
to Iowa following the footsteps of his parents, and also achieved his personal goal of beating his father’s 50 freestyle time of 21.02 seconds with the new school record of 20.98 seconds from his third place finish in the finals. “He still rubs it in my face [because] he got first [in state]. It’s a benchmark to hit and I’m happy, but the most important part is to get my personal best, try to see what I can do in the future and hopefully swim in college,” Dumford said. Coach Bryan Szweda has watched him improve firsthand year after year. He describes how it feels for him and the rest of the team to Senior Sam Dumford displaying his third place medal after swimsee such a historic ming in the 50 freestyle at the IHSA State meet at Evanston High run by Dumford. School. Photo courtesy of DGS Swim & Dive Twitter account “Seeing Sam perform at such a high level is just a validation of all the improve his technique and dedicate more time in the offseason to swim. hard work that he has put in. Each “For being as talented as Sam is, he year, he has worked significantly was still relatively raw as a swimharder, and each year he has made mer coming in,” Szweda said. “ I have great progress. It is a wonderful lestried to help him improve some of the son that our other swimmers can use smaller details in his swimming. I in their swimming careers,” Szweda have also tried to show him the imsaid. portance of competing outside of the Despite seeing his natural talschool season and how that could help ent, Szweda encouraged Dumford to
him succeed during our season.” Dumford took his coach’s advice and he trained for swimming consistently in the offseason and also changed his ideology on how training for swimming should be done. “Coming in with a full year of training was big step ahead from last year. [I had] a lot more focus on the technique of swimming instead of yardage this year. Instead of just doing longer workouts, I’ve just been fine tuning to get the most efficiency out of the stroke,” Dumford said. Senior Ryan Ferreri joined the boys varsity swim team this year and has high regards for his fellow veteran teammate for his work ethic and atmosphere he brings to the team. “Sam is one of the hardest working athletes that I know and one of the best athletes at this school… During the regular season, he won almost every individual event he was in… We knew no one had a chance against him. We didn’t watch to see if he was going to win, we watched to see how much time he was going to drop every event... He dropped time every time he swam,” Ferreri said. After his final state competition as a Mustang, Dumford reflected on his experience from his high school swimming career. “[The state meet]’s a good learning experience from such a high level environment. [My high school swimming] experience has taught me a lot about teamwork and really valuing the people [I have been] with for it,” Dumford said.
Contact Joe at jste1881@csd99.org
Softball swings for the fences after successful season By Autumn McSwain, Staff Reporter
we believe that we should be pretty solid, but we have been running a lot of defensive drills just to ensure that we’re completely ready for the season,” Havelka said. Their previous record sets the bar high for the Mustangs this season.
The team owes all of its success to teamwork and recognizing individual strengths. Senior Nicole Bowman, who is committed to Rutgers University, loves the friendships she has with each and every teammate and believes that
plays a key role in the team’s success. “We’re all really good friends and super close. Since it’s my senior year, it’ll probably be my last time seeing a lot of the girls, so I love spending as much time with the team as possible. I think it’s really important for teammates to have a close bond because that’s what makes the team better,” Bowman said. For Havelka, losing a game is only seen as a chance for improvement. “After losing a game, my best motivation for the team is that we will try harder the next time. When we lose, there is nothing more we can do but improve ourselves and be ready to take on the next game, but we try to practice our hardest just to make sure that we aren’t put under those circumstances,” Havelka said. With a season of great possibilities ahead, the Mustang softball team is looking forward to many victories. More importantly, instead of only looking to beat other teams, they’re looking forward to improving themselves and their past record.
The DGS softball team is back and preparing for another season. Winning 33 games and only having two losses last season, the team is looking forward to playing their absolute best in order to come back even stronger. With the season starting March 21, the softball team has been giving their all in practice, but they’re not complaining because they know that’s what it will take to achieve their goals. Attending St. Louis University next year, senior Megan LoBianco wants to make her last season as a Mustang the best yet. “I think our team is super determined this season because we’ve all been so excited to start playing again. Since I’m attending SLU next year, it’s really important for me to be able to try and make this the best season,” LoBianco said. Coach Ron Havelka says that a major key to success this year will be working on the team’s defense. “The biggest thing I think our team is working on improving The girls varsity softball team hoisting their sectional plaque last season. this season is our defense. We have Photo courtesy of DGS Softball about six position players back, so
Contact Autumn at amcs2141@csd99.org