Aiden Moore, left, and Olivia Myers of the Marysville Stingrays get in some practice time before a recent meet against Dublin Atlantic at the Marysville Municipal Swimming Pool.
(Journal-Tribune photo by Tim Miller)
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Recruitment has long been the big buzzword among collegiate athletic teams.
Adding quality players year-after-year is a sports program’s life blood.
The same can be said, albeit on a smaller level, for the Marysville Stingrays swimming team.
The long-time program has seen its roster expand by almost a third for the 2017 season through the efforts of recruitment.
“We did a lot of recruiting prior to the season,” said Debbie Williams, who heads the program’s parental boosters. “We got with a lot of different schools and the Union County YMCA last winter to see if there were more kids interested in joining the team.”
Those recruitment efforts have paid huge dividends.
The Stingrays roster (including the boys and girls teams) expanded from 67 in 2016 to 101 youngsters ages 6-18 this summer.
“We went to the various schools in the Marysville district, such as Navin and Mill Valley, plus the Lutheran schools and Fairbanks,” said Williams. “Also, the city of Marysville continues to grow and there are a lot of new families from which we were able to attract swimmers.
“We are pulling in kids from different areas.”
Williams’ family is an example, as they moved here from Florida a year ago due to employment reasons.
Williams said that families have also learned about the swim program from the city of Marysville’s website.
The largest number of swimmers belongs to the younger groups.
“We have a huge group of younger kids, ages 6-10,” said Williams. “We have between 40 and 50 swimmers in that group.”
The Stingrays are unlike the swim teams from other nearby communities in that they compete in two different leagues, the NEW and COSA.
The NEW league is described by Williams as being more challenging for local swimmers. COSA is more like a recreational league.
“Most swimming programs in other communities only participate in one league, due to time constraints,” said Williams. “We are participating in two because we have enough volunteers to cover two leagues and two meets each week.”
NEW meets are held on Wednesday evenings against the Muirfins, Dublin Pacific, Dublin Atlantic, Dublin North and the Northland Swim Club.
The Stingrays have won their lone NEW meet to date.
Teams from Highland Park, Worthington and Home Lifetime Fitness provide some of the opposition in COSA on Saturday mornings.
Swimmers are permitted to swim in meets for both leagues.
Home meets are held at the Marysville Municipal Swimming Pool.
Locations for various away meets include Annehurst Pool in Westerville, the Delaware City Pool, the Worthington City Pool, The Dublin Community Pool, Lifetime Fitness and the Northland Swim Club.
The season was supposed to begin on June 7 against Dublin Pacific. Inclement weather, however, forced the postponement of that meet until June 28, which was supposed to be a bye week.
The rest of the schedule may be found on the team’s website, marysvillestingray.org.
Dublin North will host the NEW championship meet on Monday, July 17.
Each Stingray swimmer must compete in at least two NEW meets during the season in order to qualify for the championship meet.
Williams said she hopes the program continues to grow in the coming years.
If this year’s increase is any indication, that won’t be a problem.
“The kids really seem to enjoy it,” she said.