Just a year ago the Powell Panther girls’ swim team won its fourth conference championship in the last five years and placed third at the state meet for the fourth consecutive season. Now the Panthers are seeking to repeat those goals despite a large turnover from last year’s team.

Ten athletes graduated from 2023, which included losing 75% of the points earned at the state meet.

“Nine of our 19 athletes are new to the team, so our first week is about teaching the new athletes our system,” coach Bob Smartt said. “Especially drills that we use to help make the swimming strokes more efficient. It is nice to not have school the first week of practice so that athletes can concentrate on a good training week.”

Some of the top athletes eligible to return for the Panthers include seniors Kate Miller, Paige Thomas and Croix Tryon along with a trio of juniors in Patricia Christensen, Kaitlin Diver and Addy Powell.

Heading into this season, Smartt said that the Panthers’ goals will remain to win the conference title as well as place in the top three at the state meet in Cheyenne this year.

“Those will be very challenging goals this year since we have graduated over 75% of our points from the state meet last year,” Smartt said.

He said that Park County rival Cody is likely to be the favorite to win the conference meet and Lander is expected to be the overwhelming favorite to win the 3A state meet, but the state competition will be closer and more fierce this year with the departure of Green River, Riverton and Evanston up to 4A.

Early in the year, Smartt said that the purpose of early season training is to focus on all four strokes.

“Our early season training is individual medley-based, meaning we emphasize all four strokes, because the first meet in Lander is a pentathlon where the stronger swimmers swim all four strokes,” Smartt said.

Beginning the season the Panthers will head on the road to Fremont County, taking part in the Bruce Gresly Pentathlon at 10 a.m. Saturday, with Smartt looking to evaluate the new swimmers to the program early in the year.

“The Lander meet is an excellent opportunity to view the relative strengths and weaknesses of our new athletes,” Smartt said. “It also gives us a glimpse of the freshmen who have arrived on competing teams. Because the athletes are allowed to do five different swimming races, versus a maximum of two in a normal swim meet, we will get lots of splashes and lots of opportunities to see how our athletes are progressing.”

Powell will return to Park County next weekend to compete in Cody, with the Panthers hosting two meets this season before the state meet in Cheyenne on Nov. 7-8.