The Panthers are in sunny Fort Lauderdale, training at Pine Crest Academy, both short and long course.They will be on the trip through the 16th of January before resuming the regular season schedule second semester against IUPUI on Jan. 17.
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Tuesday's entry comes from freshman Nick Menninga:A beautiful sunny morning accompanied the team today as we started off this morning with the annual biathlon; a mile swim followed by a three mile run. After an average of about 45 minutes straight racing, all of us were exhausted. Back at the hotel it was time for the beach, as it was the last day to soak up the rays. After a couple of hours on the beach, most of us were tired and went back to our rooms to watch TV and take some well deserved naps.
After dinner we were back to the pool for the "senior practice." Instead of having to listen to our normal coaches, we got to do a practice run by the seniors. Starting with a snake warmup, which took us through all the lanes doing a variety of things from corkscrew stroke to front flips to sliding down a pad on our stomachs into the pool. We were then split up into lanes and we did trivia about the seniors. If your lane got it right you had an easy drill or fun swim, while it was a tough one if you were incorrect. After the trivia we went on to split up into classes; freshman, sophomores, and juniors. We had a short time to make a water ballet routine which the seniors judged, giving the juniors the victory, meaning they were done with practice. The freshman and sophomores then moved onto round two which was to create a new cheer relating to the team. The seniors discussed who the victor was for a while as it was a close battle, which the sophomores lost out, and were required to get back into the pool for another 500 yards.
This concluded our last practice in the pool for the trip and some went out to eat afterwards, while others went to the hotel to pack and get ready for the day of travel tomorrow.
