Tri-parish swim teams face added challenges after storms

Terrebonne Parish’s public high school swim teams were finally able to practice at their home pools last week.

Lack of maintenance and loss of power after Hurricane Gustav caused the pools at East Houma and Bayou Black recreational centers to turn black. Both pools had to be drained, cleaned and refilled before teams could resume practices and host meets.

“It was very hard and frustrating for the kids and myself” said Terrebonne swim coach Amy Williams. “All the other sports have been practicing and playing games. We were still struggling to find a place to swim. We had been conditioning at the Terrebonne track, but it’s not the same as being in the pool.”

Ellender coach Troy Wininger and H.L. Bourgeois coach Lynn Bailey were in a similar predicament trying to keep their teams in shape. However, South Terrebonne coach Wanda Ledet knew her squad had other extracurricular activities to keep them fit.

“On my team, I have a lot of football players, cheerleaders, cross country runners and volleyball players,” she said of her 36-member team. “My kids do other things besides swim.”

The Patriots and Gators use the East Houma pool, while the Tigers and Braves use the Bayou Black pool.

It was especially hard to remove the algae-plagued water out of the Bayou Black pool.

Because the facility was being used as a food stamp distribution site, the pool had to be drained into a nearby bayou instead of the grass as it normally would. Because the water level in the bayou was still high, the pool drained very slowly.

At East Houma, Ledet and parents of her swimmers cleaned the pool themselves after it was drained.

“It took us about half-a-day to do that.” Ledet said. “There were also some roofing tiles from the gym next door at the bottom of the pool. That took a while to remove.”

The teams got their first dose of competition at non-scoring cluster meets held in Morgan City and Cut Off Sept. 27. Most of the coaches saw the effect the layoff had on the young swimmers.

“In that first meet, there were a lot of simple mistakes because we had not been swimming in almost four weeks,” Williams said. “Some kids did really well, but overall you could tell a lot of them were out of shape.”

When the first official scoring dual meets of the 2008 Bayou District High School Swim League was held on Sept. 29, it was clear some handled the time away better than others.

“My experienced swimmers were ready and prepared,” Bailey said of her 20-member team. “The younger ones were not.”

Terrebonne won the men and women events in Morgan City, accumulating 178 and 264 points respectively.

H.L.B. came in second with 152 and 173 points respectively. Followed by Berwick (151 and 150), Patterson (154 and 22) and Central Catholic (zero on both).

At the Cut Off Youth Center meet, the 2007 district champion South Lafourche won, amassing 394 and 399 points in the men and women events respectively. South Terrebonne was second with 341 and 260, followed by Central Lafourche (258.5 and 257), Thibodaux (235.5 and 218) and Ellender (20 and 21).

“We did really well considering the circumstances,” Ledet said. “Our times didn’t drop as I’d hoped, but they looked pretty good.”

The second scoring meets were held on Monday at East Houma, Bayou Black and Cut Off Youth Center pools. Results were not in as of press time.

The following schedule is tentative for the Monday, Oct. 13 meets at 4 p.m. :

At the Cut Off Youth Center – South Lafourche vs. Thibodaux vs. Terrebonne.

At East Houma – South Terrebonne vs. Central Lafourche vs. Ellender Memorial

At Morgan City Public Pool – Patterson vs. H.L. Bourgeois vs. Berwick vs. Central Catholic

The Bayou District High School Championship Meet at Cut Off Youth Center pool has been rescheduled for Oct. 27 at 2 p.m.