SSC resumes training with new coach

Saipan Swim Club members buckled down to work Monday at the Kan Pacific Swimming Pool in Marpi after a brief summer vacation.

They will start their fall training with new coach Michael Blasberg, who replaced Michael Stewart last month.

Stewart called it quits after four years at the helm of SSC’s swimming program to take a new coaching post in Taos, New Mexico, but left Saipan tankers in good hands.

Blasberg, who teaches biology at Marianas High School, is a member of SSC Masters swim team and has been into swimming since he was nine years old.

The 23-year-old St. Paul, Minnesota, native swam competitively for clubs and school for 10 years. In Eagan High School in east central Minnesota, he was captain of the swim team in his senior year and made it to sectional finals. Blasberg switched to recreational swimming while he was studying at the University of Minnesota, as the university did not have a team swim.

Before coming to Saipan two years ago, Blasberg managed a women’s high school swim team for two years

He started co-coaching SSC with Stewart midway last month to get the feel of handling about 50 swimmers and officially took the coaching reigns on July 31.

Blasberg in an email to the Saipan Tribune said the first few months of their fall training will focus heavily on drills, starts and turns, and strength development.

Training sessions for the Senior and Junior teams will be six days a week, from Monday to Saturday. Practice on weekdays runs from 3:45pm to 6pm, while Saturday session is set from 7am to 9am.

The SSC Senior team will be led by Junior Pamaran, Lester Lapus, Michael Moran, Blair Nichols, Grace Kimball, and Sarah Johnson.

Members of the Blue, White, and Developmental teams are only training three times a week. Training sessions for Blue Team are set for every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from 4pm to 5:30pm, 4pm to 5pm for White every Monday, Tuesday and Thursday, and 5pm to 6pm for Developmental, also every Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday.

Adult beginners train only twice a day from 5pm to 6pm on Wednesdays and Fridays, while members of the Masters program have to be in Marpi on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays from 5:45pm to 7pm, and on Saturdays from 7am to 9am.

Blasberg said the regular training sessions will help SSC swimmers prepare for monthly tournaments with Tsunami Swimming Center Saipan and a meet in Guam in December.

“We have a competition in Guam that comes up in December. That’s the first one on my radar. We also scheduled monthly meets with Tsunami and hopefully these will give the kids more opportunities to race and the coaches more opportunities to get times. I know we have another tournament in Guam in the spring and then the world championships in Rome next August,” said Blasberg, who is having a good time in his coaching debut with SSC.

“So far we’ve gotten off to a great start. The kids have been great filling me in on how things are done. I’ve made some changes and the kids seem to respond well. One thing I was worried about was not pushing them hard enough, but lately they’ve been assuring me that’s not the case,” he said.

“We have an amazingly positive team, everyone has demonstrated acceptance toward me and shown a very strong work ethic, I’m very excited to see the kind of results they can produce this season,” Blasberg added. [B][I](Roselyn B. Monroyo)[/I][/B]