With swim season underway, the Rangers will head to Davenport on Friday to compete against the other four Comal ISD schools in the Cinco Swim meet. One competitor, the brand-new Pieper High School, will be participating in its first swim contest ever.

It’ll be the Warriors’ first matchup against the classmates they left behind.

This will be the only time the schools will face each other, because they are not in the same UIL classification.Their geographic proximity, though, has given the swimmers a higher level of motivation.

“I think even though a lot of these schools aren’t in our (UIL) district, it’s more personal because it’s Comal,” head swim coach Julia Brunner said. “It’s our neighbors, and some of the people they swim with for club and people who used to be at Smithson Valley that went to Pieper. I think it’s way more personal,” Brunner said.

Many team members are excited to see friends that they practice with on local club teams.

“The team I am most excited to race is Canyon Lake, because one of the girls I swim with on club goes there,” Junior Cara Doyle said.

The team’s mentality is the same as Brunner’s, and they’re mostly focused on beating the swimmers they know on the other teams.

“I am most excited to race Pieper and Canyon Lake because I have friends on those teams that beat me last year,” junior Carson Blair said. “I want to prove them wrong this year, and they are our school’s greatest competition.”

The team is mostly focused on taking first, and continuing the winning tradition of the past couple years.

“ I want everyone to improve on their time from last year, but I would say the (main goal) is to win,” Brunner said. “We will see a lot of teams throughout the season, (but) we need to stake our claim as the top school of Comal.”

This is swim’s third head coach in as many years, after Kari Osborne left to become Northside ISD’s aquatics director and David James retired.

With the arrival of another set of new swim coaches this year, many swimmers are happy with the change of pace Brunner and assistant coach Heidi Fritscher bring.

“I am more excited for the coaching change this year than the one last year,” Blair. “These coaches are a lot more dedicated and know what needs to be done in and out of the water.”

And this new dedication is obvious in Brunners No. 1 goal-

“(The) top goal is to win, first place baby”