Last year, both the men’s and women’s teams finished in fourth at the conclusion of the Northwest Conference Championships. Despite the graduation of eight seniors across, four per team, this year, both squads find themselves in fourth place in the preseason rankings.

The team also finds themself with a mixture of younger players and seasoned upperclassmen. The women also have two defending champions: senior biology major Sarah Arpag and senior marketing major Kristi Keppo. Both of them took home two individual championships last year.

Despite last year’s success, Keppo isn’t satisfied, and is looking to improve even more in her senior year.

“I have been preparing for this season by swimming throughout the off-season as well as swimming with my club team over the summer months,” Keppo said. “In addition to this, I have been lifting and working on different strokes and small technique fixes.”

Keppo, who has won the championship in the 1,650 freestyle the last two years, wants to push herself and the team this season to get over the hump. Since 2022, the team has finished top four in the conference, but has only won the championship once – in 2023.

Keppo says the overall goal for the team is to stay connected and motivated. She hopes that’ll improve their placement this year.

On the men’s side, they face a similar hump. The team has placed in the top four in the championship every year since 2016, save the 2021 year cancelled due to COVID-19, but have yet to win a championship, often playing second fiddle to Whitman.

Junior marketing major Nik Jelusic puts the goals for this year bluntly.

“The team goals for the season are a higher placement at conference,” Jelusic said. “Another goal is to keep the team as injury free and healthy as possible.”

Jelusic, who does sprints, says his personal goal is to stay healthy this season, and qualify for finals. This offseason, he’s been training and working on technique to make himself faster and reduce any risk for injury.

Swim season began on Nov. 1 in Salem, Ore. against Willamette University. The season runs through the entirety of November, before taking a hiatus in December. It will then pick up again on Jan. 16 and conclude in February with the conference championships, although the national championship is in March should anyone qualify.

The December break isn’t wasted, however. The team takes an extensive training retreat at the end of the month.

“This year we are going to Phoenix, AZ, to train [in] some of the hardest sets of the year,” Keppo said. “[This] is the final stretch of hard training before we begin to taper down for our last month before the conference championship meet.”

This extensive training is all to set up what the team hopes is a successful season, and a podium finish at the end of it all.

“For me, a successful season looks like everybody hitting best times at [the conference championship],” Jelusic said. “And the team achieving its goals for the season.”

While the team will be away for their first meet of the season, they play host to Pacific University on Nov. 7 for their home opener.