Crimson Bears dive into the season

After treading water in practice the last three weeks, the Juneau-Douglas High School swimming and diving team opens its season today and Saturday at the Petersburg Invitational.

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The Crimson Bears return 15 of 20 state qualifiers from last year's team as they seek to maintain their long-standing hold on the Region V titles. Juneau's boys finished fourth and the girls finished 10th at state last year, and the swimmers are getting anxious to get back to competition and build on those results.

"We're excited to see what we can do," said senior co-captain Weather Potdevin, whose events include the 200- and 500-yard freestyle. "We've been training for three weeks, and we want to see if our training is paying off."

Coach John Wray said the team features 31 swimmers and 11 divers, including most of Crimson Bears' top region and state finishers from last fall.

"The core is back, they're really motivated and they're swimming well," Wray said. "The kids put out a team goal that they would like to win regionals," as well as finishing one place better than they did last season at state.

Senior co-captain John Wagner said the large team is providing good motivation.

"It helps to have a lot of kids because everyone pushes each other," he said.

The boys squad will be led by sophomore Paul Hughes, who posted second-place finishes at the state meet in the 100-yard breaststroke and the 200 individual medley, and junior Kirk Fishel, who placed second at state in the 100 backstroke last year.

Also expected to contribute this season are seniors Wagner and Jake Kreuzenstein, junior Olin Robus, sophomores Tyler Hennon, Abe Levy and Q Smythe and freshman Aaron Hughes - Paul's brother.

"We have a big boys team," Wray said. "This is the first time in 11 years I've been coaching that we've had a bigger boys team than a girls team."

Leading the Crimson Bear girls are seniors Potdevin and Kaitlin Kreuzenstein, junior Lisse Focht, sophomore Kelsey Potdevin - Weather's sister - and freshman Giselle Stone.

Juneau's diving team, which is coached by Cathy Tide, includes both of the defending Region V champions - sophomore Marnita Coenraad for the girls and senior Ryan Stidolph for the boys.

Wray said the younger swimmers have a lot of potential for success this season, especially for the sophomores who got a taste of the state tournament as freshmen last year. He said this year's juniors and seniors showed improvement during their second season of competition.

Juneau will be off after this weekend, then heads to Sitka on Sept. 20-21. On Thursday, Sept. 26, Juneau competes in a dual meet at Valdez, then spends the next two days competing in the Valdez Invitational which will have most of the state's top non-Anchorage teams.

The Crimson Bears host their only home swim meets on Oct. 4-5, then close out the regular season at Ketchikan on Oct. 18-19.

The Region V Championships will be held in Petersburg this year, on Nov. 1-2, and the state meet is Nov. 8-9 at Anchorage's Bartlett High School.

Andrew Krueger can be reached at akrueger@juneauempire.com.