Community will host Thursday’s Intercity Meet looking to translate a season of incremental improvements into one of their strongest team showings yet.

Head coach Mrs. Heather Budak said the Iron have seen “little drops all the way through the season,” even when results don’t fully reflect the swimmers’ growth.

Those drops, Budak said, serve as “benchmarks … to show that their hard work is paying off.”

The Oct. 9 meet at Community will serve as another benchmark—an opportunity for swimmers to rest, reset and measure their progress before the conference and sectional stretch.

“We swim a lot of meets, so they’re really tired,” Budak said. “Sometimes it’s harder for them to gauge the improvements that they’re making every day because when we swim three meets in a week and then also have six swim practices on top of those three meets, it’s a lot.”

To prepare for Intercity, Budak said, the team scaled back its training volume slightly heading into Intercity.

“We’ll take a little bit of a step back with training for Intercity,” she said, “so we can hopefully see some drops and have some good races there.”

Community’s endurance-heavy schedule has sharpened the team’s depth and versatility heading into one of the season’s most competitive local meets.

The Iron posted standout swims in recent weeks from senior Piper Lowder, freshman Haleigh Guy and sophomore Alyssa Hutson, along with time drops from seniors Emily Hall, Berit Rice and Alivia Larsen in midseason quad and invitational competition.

Budak said she encourages her athletes to trust the training process, especially when midseason fatigue blurs progress.

“We talk about the work that they put in—how tired they are that week, what we did at practice each day,” she said. “The older girls are great at letting the younger ones know what happens at the end of our season—how it all pays off.”

Additional reporting by Olivia Lively, Sky Williams and Samantha Sadicoff