New Season Update
We are very excited about the upcoming season at WEST! There are many changes happening this year as we look to restructure our team and expand our coaching staff. The biggest change will be adding “Embark Group” to the program. This will take the place of Pre-Comp 2 and we will only be running one level of Pre-Comp going forward. With this change, we aim to get younger kids involved on the competitive team and better prepare them for higher levels of success to come.
Margaret will continue to coach our Development Groups and will the primary coach on Embark and Explore Groups.
Discover Group will now become part of our Age Group Groups and we aim to expose these swimmers to more structured training, better preparing them for the groups to come next. We’ve hired a new coach that will be taking Discover Group in the fall.
Challenge Group will have a change on Wednesday practices. Instead of in-water training on Wednesdays, we are going to hold an extended dryland practice to better teach technique and movement in the weight room. This will smooth the transition from Discover Group (where they only practice 4x per week) and set our athletes up for greater success and safety during dryland. We’ve hired a new coach that will be taking Challenge Group in the fall.
Accelerate Group will have an early morning double practice added on Thursday. We want swimmers at this stage to start being exposed to doubles before they move into Senior swimming. We cancel doubles at times of the season where we feel sleep is more important and will start them in late Sept / early Oct once the swimmers are back at school. This means swimmers MUST stay on top of academics to get a full night’s rest.
Senior and Senior Elite will have minimal changes including a Saturday afternoon double.
Please carefully review the practice schedule for each group as many times will change for next year. All practice times have been posted to the website (click here for Schedule page).
Season Start Dates:
Senior & Senior Elite: Monday 8/26 – Thursday 8/29 Practice @ West 12-2:30pm, Friday 8/30 @ Engineered Sports (groups of 10 at staggered start times – 9:30, 10, 10:30, more info to come out 8/26). Tuesday, Sept 3rd: Begin normal Fall Schedule.
Discover, Challenge & Accelerate: Tuesday, Sept 3rd: Begin normal Fall Schedule.
Embark, Explore: Monday, Sept 9th: Begin normal Fall Schedule.
Lessons & Pre-Comp: Tuesday, Sept 3rd
Registration will open soon! Please check your emails and the News Section of the website for announcements.
Reminder: WEST is CLOSED starting 8/19 and will REOPEN 8/26. No programs will be running.
