Sarah Laney is a first-year coach for the Dorchester swim team, but when it comes to her experience with the Dolphins, she certainly qualifies as a veteran.
Laney, 20, swam for Dorchester from when she was 5 until she was 18 and was an assistant last summer under former coach Christina Buehler, who stepped down after having a baby. She inherits a team that placed eighth among nine teams in the Midwest Swim Conference in 2010.
"My assistant coach Elizabeth McConnell and I swam together in high school (at O'Fallon) and our coach was Kim Eddy, who is also the O'Fallon Breakers' coach," said Laney, who will be a junior at the University of Missouri.
"I know all the swimmers from when I swam except maybe some of the little kids, so it's been a pretty smooth transition. There's a little more responsibility as a head coach - you're running meets instead of just showing up to help out."
Dorchester opened the season June 16 with a loss to six-time defending champion Kings Point but performed well in a June 21 loss to Highland that was shortened by rain and lightning. The Dolphins lost to Freeburg on June 23 and lost to Hilltoppers on June 28 but improved to 1-4 with a win over the Scott Air Force Base Sharks on June 30.
"Teams like O'Fallon, Kings Point and Hilltoppers have a lot of kids and a lot of year-round swimmers," Laney said. "We have about 70 kids but only a handful that swim year-round.
"But I love working with my kids and they're really fun. For just swimming in the summer, a lot of them are really good."
Top swimmers for the Dolphins include Kylie Gagen (8-and-under girls), Jeremy Soehnlin (11-12 boys) and Tara Luhning (13-14 girls).
"Jeremy has only been swimming for two or three years, but he's really shot up," Laney said. "Tara came over from Kings Point and she's really going to help us. Our 15-18 girls have taken to calling her ‘Michael Phelps' and she swims up with them in practice.
"We have at least one or two really good kids in each age group. We have about 15 girls in the 8-and-under group, so hopefully they'll stick with it. We're also pretty strong in the 9-10 and 11-12 age groups.
"We don't have a lot of older kids. We have four 13-14 boys and three 15-18 boys and they're all solid swimmers, but if we want to have a 15-18 relay, we have to bump up one of the 13-14 boys."
Dorchester was slated to swim Tuesday at St. Clair Country Club and wraps up the regular season with meets against Westhaven (July 12, home) and O'Fallon (July 14, away). The conference meet is July 23 at O'Fallon.
"Since we're such a small team, we can't go out and win conference, so I just want my kids to focus on getting their best times and becoming better swimmers," Laney said. "I would like to place better in conference than we did last year. We're aiming for the fifth to seventh range."
