Central’s swim teams are off the blocks and making their way through the start of their season.
For the last 11 years coach Kristoff Berzins has built a culture where the team becomes a family, have found a system that challenges swimmers to not only athletically letter but to letter with distinction, and push his swimmers to get the opportunity to end their season swimming at state in the Nebraska Natatorium in Lincoln.
Berzins came up with the lettering system idea when he first started coaching and was dealing with major attendance issues. “Starting the points system was a way to keep the team accountable and felt necessary to get the team to reach their potential. I believe it has payed off,” Berzins said.
Because of the lettering system that Berzins put in place, they have now built a team that holds themselves accountable, and they raised the bar again by adding the lettering with distinction component.
Lettering with distinction is the same points system in place with the addition of hitting certain times in events to earn award. This gives the swimmers additional goals to achieve and will help them when pursuing their own goals for the season. This system was started two years ago, and Berzins has already seen improvement within the team.
For the 2024 season, seniors Laura Lindsay and Holland Robison who have both been on varsity all four years, took the positions of team captains vowing to lead the team and instill the culture that Central swimming carries into the new swimmers on the team so that they can carry the traditions on themselves.
Their primary goal for the team is to “keep the morale high throughout the season and to have fun, because it gets mentally challenging with how long the season is,” Robison said. Swimming-wise, the goal is to “make sure everyone puts in their full effort every day and hoping to send more people to state in individual events and bringing home some medals with our relays,” Lindsay said.
The personal goals for the captains are quite similar. For Robison, she wants to make two individual events and be on state relays and an individual event at state this year along with going in relays. For Lindsay, she has goals of becoming a more versatile swimmer with more events and working towards qualifying in two individual state events, be on state relays, and a top eight place a state in the 100 breaststroke.
The boy’s side of the swim team looks a little different at the beginning of the season as star swimmer and Central junior Carter Hiley, who has achieved many Central boys swimming records, is not training with the team until the middle of December.
Hiley qualified for the Winter Junior Championships with his competitive swim team Brownell Talbot Aquatics. Hiley qualified with an automatic bid in the 200 individual medley and optional bids in the 100 and 200 freestyles and the 100 backstroke, but he will not be competing in that event.
“Switching coaches and changing up training that drastically a month before the meet is unrealistic” Hiley said.
Much like Lindsay and Robison, Hiley’s goals for the season as a team is to get more relays to state. Personally, however, Hiley hopes to win state for Central for the first time in 60 years, aiming to go under 1:50 in the individual medley and under 45 seconds in the 100 freestyles.
For swimmers like Hiley, they’re excited to be back with the team again, back swimming in high school, and all the fun things that come with swimming season like the team dinners and meets.
Despite all the fun things that take place during the season, “It is hard missing out on the fun of the season, especially before people start to realize how hard the season is,” Hiley said.
For Berzins and the other coaches, they want to see everyone on the team achieve and get better.
“No matter the time dropped, any time dropped is a major accomplishment and celebration,” Berzins said.
“We want to see two boys’ relays podium at state, see Hiley break an Omaha Public Schools record, see the seniors bring the freshman into the loop of Central swimming, and overall set up the Central Swim team for success this winter,” Berzins said.
