The Big Sandy Mountaineer -

The Big Sandy Barracudas’ 2020 swim season came to an end in late July with a final meet in Shelby on the 25th. This season was unlike every other year for Big Sandy because of the challenges posed by the Covid shutdowns. Fewer meets, many towns simply not participating, and smaller teams from the towns that did compete changed the year dramatically. Coach Travis Baumann describes the challenge as it related to the meet in Conrad: “There were other teams there, but not very many. So, in Conrad there was us, Conrad, Chester, a couple kids from Fairfield, Shelby, and like two kids from Bitterroot and that was it. So, the numbers were really down. Normally at Conrad, we’re looking at more than three hundred plus kids... because we’d be getting kids from Hamilton, Bitterroot, Columbia Falls, Plains, Cut Bank, Chouteau, and Fort Benton. None of those teams showed up this year. Even the teams that were around were small.”

In total, Big Sandy participated in only 3 swim meets this year; Shelby, Conrad, and a meet against ourselves here in Big Sandy. In a season where meets happen nearly every weekend throughout the summer, this represented a large cut. Travis explained the impact on the team’s participation and performance: “Not having meets, it’s tough to keep these older kids that have jobs waking up and coming in early to practice at 5:30 in the morning and keeping them motivated. I think we did an ok job, but nothing like we have done in years past because we knew we had kids that were faster than us, and it was pushing us and when you have your one meet in the middle of June against yourself, then you go to Conrad and you bring home six high points and end of the year at Shelby, it’s the same thing. You just don’t have the competition to push them, so you don’t tend to push them as hard as they probably should.”

“Our town was really excellent. We were able to have our regular practices. There were a couple rules we needed to follow... but other than that, our practice schedule was the same as it’s always been. It’s just that for a while Box Elder and Rocky Boy were completely shut down, and we have ten kids from that area, so we lost those ten kids for the whole rest of the year. They couldn’t come practice, they couldn’t do anything. That really hurt our team, not having that group of kids that helps push, because there are some that are really good,” Travis explained.

Despite the lack of competition to drive improvement and the smaller team size, Travis pointed out that the younger kids progressed very well. The older swimmers that the team was able to retain did a lot of fine tuning and improving. He credited this to the smaller group size, which allowed for more individual attention at practice. “Smaller practices mean you can do more things with younger kids. When you get over 12 kids in the pool at a time, it’s tough to spot weaknesses to try to fix.”

Another positive Travis pointed out for the Barracudas in particular this year was the lack of graduating seniors: “This year we did not graduate anyone. I am glad about that. I would have hated to see kids end with this swim season the way this swim season ended. Not having anything. No competition, no meets, no senior walk to get the recognition among their friends and families for the years they have put in.“

Looking to next year, Travis was optimistic about the team’s chances for next year: “If our kids come back that we have this year, we’ll have five seniors. That will be our biggest graduating class we’ve ever had. They are some excellent swimmers... It’s hard to keep a group of kids together for years. We’ve done it for nine years with Kade, Cameron, Dillon, Jozlyn, and had Brady not gone to the military, he’d have been there. The team will look a lot different when those kids graduate.”

In particular, Travis has an eye on his team of boys’ chances of breaking his own record: “We’ve got some kids who are looking to break some fed records. I’m excited to see how that plays out. We have a senior boys group that have been fighting to beat a record that me and some teammates set in Conrad in ‘95. It’s still there 25 years later.” He is confident that the boys will probably unseat his record next season.