After a highly successful season last year, the Varsity Marlborough Swim team was promoted from the California Interscholastic Federation-Southern Section (CIF), Division 2 to Division 1 for this current spring season.
In the CIF, the division of a team is decided based on their overall strength and success. This means that the Marlborough Swim team is now ranked with some of California’s highest-profile teams.
“It [the promotion] puts the team on the swimming map, so to speak, statewide and is a boost to the school’s athletics visibility in terms of athletics,” Head Coach of Varsity Swimming Peter Lambert said. “Other high profile teams in the area are looking at Marlborough like, ‘who is this Marlborough team?’”
Marlborough swimmers have always been extremely dedicated to their sport. The team recently won the Division 3 championship and were undefeated last season. This season, they have been putting in more effort to improve their swimming and leadership capabilities in order to adapt to the new environment and succeed against other D1 teams.
CIF D1 is the most rigorous section in the country and requires swimmers to be at a more competitive level. Many swimmers are feeling challenged by this competition.
“I think the change has definitely made us a tougher team because we have to go against the harder competition,” Lior ‘24 said. “I’ve struggled with being confident during competitions, but I’m proud of where I’ve come.”
This change brought about many emotions for members on the team.
“I think many of my teammates were very scared at first, but we acknowledge that this would be a good opportunity for us to go against harder competitors and let it become a motivation for all of us to train harder,” Madison ‘24 said. “Also, I think that since we have been promoted to Division 1, it has brought the team’s mindset of bonding much stronger than previous years.”
Despite the challenge, Coach Peter Lambert is not worried about the team’s capabilities. Since the team was D4 just ten years ago, he said being D1 shows major improvement.
“This is the most serious and talented team in Marlborough history,” Lambert said. “They have changed the environment themselves.”
