The Midwest Swim Conference is stronger than ever, which makes it tougher than ever for teams to move up the ladder.
But Julie Hartman, second-year head coach of the Freeburg Waves, feels the team is headed in the right direction. In 2010, Freeburg placed sixth among nine teams in the conference meet at O'Fallon.
"St. Clair (Country Club, which placed fourth) stepped up and pushed everybody back," Hartman said. "This year I'm expecting something in the fourth- to sixth-place range again.
"We're down a little bit on numbers - we did lose some kids to graduation - but we still have some pretty talented kids. I'm hoping that we can hold our own."
Freeburg's strongest age group may be the 13-14 girls.
"That's unusual for us because most years we don't have very good numbers in that group," said Hartman, who is assisted by Jon Lehmann, Jillian Rouse, Marissa Blank and Chris Alt. "For the boys, we don't have a lot of them, but what we've got is fairly even in every age group.
"We're kind of short in 11-12 girls, which is also a first for us. It's the lowest we've been for a long time, but most of the those girls moved up."
Top individuals include Tracy Brauer (11-12 girls), Erica Wangelin (13-14 girls) and Chris Alt (15-18 boys).
"We're putting our relays together and I feel pretty confident about them," Hartman said. "I think we should be there fighting for some of the top spots in the conference."
The Waves opened the season June 16 at home with a 255-234 win over Highland. Freeburg was trailing six-time defending conference champion Kings Point by 36 points on June 21 when the meet was stopped due to rain and lightning; it will be reascheduled at a date to be announced. Freeburg defeated Dorchester on Thursday and was slated to play host to St. Clair Country Club on Tuesday.
"Against teams like Kings Point, we're chasing a lot of year-round swimmers," Hartman said. "We lost some of our year-round kids from last season, but we still have six or seven.
"We're basically a summer team. If we swim our fastest times against teams like that, we're just as proud as if we won the meet."
