Oct. 31, 2008
Lobo Swimming/Diving
What: Lobos vs. BYU, Northern Arizona
When: 10:30 a.m., Saturday
Where: West Mesa High Pool
By Richard Stevens Senior Writer/GoLobos.com
Lobo senior Katrina McLoughlin really can swim the stroke she was brought to UNM to swim. Really. She’s even good at it.
And one of these days, probably at the Mountain West Conference Championships, McLoughlin will jump into the cool water and butterfly to her heart’s content. But maybe not this Saturday at the University of New Mexico’s meet with Brigham Young and Northern Arizona.
Or maybe yes.
“I never really know what to expect,” said McLoughlin, the lone senior on the UNM team. “I trained in the butterfly before our last meet and then I didn’t swim it. I just kind of go in the direction they point me in.”
Now, it’s not that Lobo swim coach Tracy Ljone is messing with McLoughlin’s head. It’s just that when Ljone is juggling the Lobos’ lineup to figure out what’s best for the team’s scoring, it’s so easy to move McLoughlin here and there.
Because this Lobo not only is versatile, this Lobo co-captain is more than willing to do whatever is best for her team.
“Katrina will swim whatever we want and with a great attitude and usually she will score for us,” said Ljone. “We recruited her for the butterfly, but last year we needed her to diversify, so she stepped up and became a great sprint freestyler and breast stroker. We didn’t even know she was a sprint freestyler.
“I think she likes doing a lot of events rather than the same event all the time. She also is a fantastic relay swimmer and she is usually on each one of them.”
McLoughlin agrees that she likes diversity in the water and she likes relays. “It’s fun to race as a team and to be able to share that experience with your teammates,” she said. McLoughlin also said her background in the butterfly is a great training ground for other strokes.
“I think training in butterfly has made me a tougher swimmer overall. It’s a tough stroke,” she said. “And I guess I’m lucky that I’m not awful at one thing and can help the team in a lot of ways.”
One way McLoughlin has helped the team is by sticking around for four years. She said there were “six or seven” freshmen swimmers when she came to UNM from Ontario, Canada four years ago, but she is the only one still in a Lobo swimsuit.
“Sometimes I feel a little disappointed that there are no other seniors to share my last year with,” she said. “But there are so many new girls on the team this year, so it’s not as lonely as I thought it might be. Still, it would be nice to have another senior to share it with.
“I have no regrets coming here. It took me a couple of years to realize how happy I was here. I’m so grateful for this experience and this opportunity that I’ve been given and I can’t see it any other way.”
McLoughlin said when she came to Albuquerque from Canada there were a few cultural adjustments to be made.
“My teammates made fun of the way I talked, the ‘Eh’ stuff, other things,” she said. “I was a little lonely the first year. You think about what your friends are doing back home, but I didn’t want to be someone who just quit on a whim. I’m a long way from home, but this seems more like my life to me now.”
As a UNM freshman and sophomore, McLoughlin actually swam the butterfly quite a bit. As a junior, she swam on the 200-yard freestyle relay, the 400-yard freestyle relay and the 200-yard medley relay. Her individual specialties as a junior were the 50-yard freestyle and the 100-yard freestyle. She was named to the Mountain West Conference All-Academic team.
As a senior, McLoughlin is hoping to help her teammates in the relays, but also is hoping to return to her old specialty.
“I train butterfly the most,” she said. “I’m doing a lot of relays and some sprint stuff now. But I came here to do the butterfly and that’s probably what I’ll pick for the conference meet.” At the MWC meet, the swimmers can pick three individual events to go along with four relays. Well, with Ljone’s blessing. But how could Ljone possibly turn down her lone senior?
The Lobos’ meet Saturday is at the West Mesa High Pool because the UNM pool is being refurbished. Ljone said the Lobos train in the old Johnson Center pool and also at high school pools around the city.
Editor’s note: Richard Stevens is a former Associate Sports Editor and sports columnist for The Albuquerque Tribune. You can reach him at rstevens50@comcast.net. Previous articles are available at The Richard Stevens Corner.