Abrams Leads Revival of CRC Swimming

There was a bit of a landmark set this spring at Cosumnes River College when the women’s swim team won its first home meet in more than 35 years. The issue wasn’t because the Hawks swim club was bad, it was the fact they didn’t have a team for all these years.

No one from back then is still here now at CRC to explain why the swim program was abandoned, but a little more than a year ago athletic director Liz Belyea wanted the sport once again at her school and got the necessary approvals pushed through.

Liz Abrams

The woman she wanted to re-start the swim program, Elizabeth Abrams, was hired in late 2014 and just a little more than a year later, the Hawks were back in the water once again. To get girls interested they did just about everything including putting an ad in the school newspaper. A few girls showed up for fall workouts and then Abrams arrived in Jan.2015. A scant few weeks later the season started.

“We had five girls on the team our first year,” she said. “It was a close-knit group of girls who worked really hard. They were super dedicated. There was a lot of improvement with in the scope of their abilities.”

Their big accomplishment in year one was that they were not last in the Big 8 Conference, which says a lot because teams of five are real small for swimming, according to Abrams.

She is a Sacramento woman who grew up in Rancho Cordova, swam as a teen with the Cordova Blue Marlins and later at American River College. She’s a teacher in the San Juan Unified School District who was the swim coach at Christian Brothers High School for several years.

Now in 2016 with a team double the size of year one with ten girls she has her swimmers going through quite a regimen daily. They are in the pool at 5:30 a.m. for two hours, then dry off and get ready for their day only to return to the pool again in the evening after Abrams arrives from her classroom teaching.

The goal this year for the Hawks’ swimmers is to lower their times to get ready for the Big 8 Conference championships.

CRC Swimmers taking a break from a workout recently

Natasha Supan, the only sophomore swimmer on the team, lowered two of her personal best records, one in the 200 meter individual medley and also in the 100 meter breaststroke. She lowered her mark drastically. Before an April 1 swim meet she swam her 200 IM in 2:55.32 and leaving the meet at American River College` her new record for 200 IM was 2:46.18, a difference of more than 6 seconds. Supan  lowered her 100 Breaststroke time from 1:23.60 to 1:22.94.

Sara Krajnovic, at the same meet, lowered two of her personal bests as well. Sara competed in the 100 butterfly event and decreased her time from 1:21.04 to 1:20.29. In the 200 IM, she lowered her time from 2:49.95 to 2:45.60, a huge accomplishment for any swimmer.

Suraya Golden was able to lower her time in the 100 breaststroke  by 3.10 seconds and she also lowered her 50 meter freestyle mark from 27.59 to 27.47.

Jenna Singh had a standout moment during the April 1 event when she dropped her time in the 100 meter butterfly from a personal best of 1:27.48, to 1:22.60. Liz Padilla swam multiple events at American River but one personal record she beat by a good amount of time was in her 100 backstroke. Singh decreased her time from 1:46.06 to 1:43.74.

Morgan Lemmons contributed to this story