With the NCAA swimming and diving season well underway, the Vikings have faced some stiff competition to start the year. While the results on paper have not been glamorous for the women’s team, Cleveland State senior Agnes Bahr spoke about how this year's Vikings are working to build a successful team culture.

Goals are a part of every sport. Most teams define their seasons based on wins and losses, but for Bahr and the rest of the women’s swimming and diving team, there is so much more to success than what appears on the scoreboard.

“The guys and girls approached goals pretty differently,” Bahr said. “We talked a lot about us as individuals and how we’re all going to come together as a tight knit group.”

That has not always been the mindset on the women’s team. 

Swimming is an individual sport and has often been treated as such, with many of the swimmers on past teams focusing more on personal success than building strong relationships with all their teammates.

“We haven’t had a lot of respect for each other as a women’s team in the past,” Bahr said. “But your strength on the team might not always be swimming fast. This year, I am thinking about how I am going to help other people, hold others accountable and hold myself accountable.”

A lot of what the women’s team is successful at can’t be seen through data, results or hard copies of things. Amid a stretch of meets against some of the top teams in the country, including Notre Dame, Pitt and Kenyon, success has not been shown through a win to this point. However, that does not mean that the Vikings have not been able to find victories outside of the win column.

Credit: Cleveland State Athletics

The women talked about their goals for each other during a team bonding trip to Washington D.C. early in the semester, and they have held themselves to those goals so far. Bahr is looking for the women to maintain that mindset even as the season reaches its peak and beyond.

“Are we still going to be able to respect each other later in the season when we’re not fresh off of a team bonding trip?”

Bahr thinks that the Vikings are up to the task if everyone buys into supporting each other through thick and thin.

“We rely a lot on each other for motivation,” Bahr said of keeping a strong mental outlook. “It’s always an internal drive, but when you’re struggling with that you have to lean on the person next to you.”

That does not just mean in the pool. The women have lofty expectations for each other not only to swim fast but to stay healthy. In addition, they have a goal of finishing the semester with a 3.7 cumulative GPA, an improvement over last year’s 3.53 that saw 20 athletes make the Dean’s List.

Bahr holds a lot of the responsibility as a senior, but also realizes that she is not better than anyone for that.

“People confuse leadership with it being a higher up position, but it’s not in this case. You might have more responsibility, but leadership is a lot of work and it’s not always fun.”

The women have already been successful in many of these areas, and they have seen evidence of that at their meets to start the year. One thing CSU does well is taking an individual sport like swimming and making it into a team sport.

“Comparing how they act as a team with how we act as a team,” Bahr said of the teams they have faced in early competition. “They don’t look like they’re having nearly as much fun as we are.”

“We only had 12 girls [at a tri meet against Notre Dame and Pitt], which is nothing, but we still scored points, we were still having a blast, we were still cheering each other on,” she said. "We’re all exhausted, we’re all beat, but we’re still able to have fun.”

The Green and White dropped that tri meet by over 100 points, a blowout that might lower morale for some teams, but the Vikings know that the importance of these meets goes beyond the final score and that there are other victories to take away from the performance.

“A lot of my friends who I thought knew us actually don’t really see what we’re accomplishing,” Bahr said. “You can be successful in other areas if that’s what you’re trying to accomplish. Whether that’s a certain time or a certain amount of kicks off the wall.”

Cleveland State hopes that they can see more of those victories as they enter the middle of the season. With the annual Magnus Invitation, hosted by the Vikings at the Busbey Natatorium, just three weeks away, the women are looking for what they need to work on before the postseason in February.

“Magnus is going to be a cool checkpoint for everyone,” Bahr said. “It will give us an idea of how we’re going to look two more months down the road when we get to conference.”

In the spring of 2020, the Cleveland State women’s swimming and diving team hoisted the runner up trophy at the Horizon League Championships for the third time in school history and their highest finish since 2013.

Bahr was a sophomore at the time, as she tasted success that the Vikings were unable to match in her junior season last year. Now, as a senior leader for the Green and White, Bahr hopes that the Vikings can find their stride down the stretch of her final season. Bahr also recognized that the results would be more meaningful if the team upholds the culture they are building.

“If we can get second [at the conference meet] while still upholding everything we’ve talked about as a team, that will mean so much more than getting first or second while not thinking about those things.”

In the end, a strong finish at the Horizon League Championships would just be icing on the cake for the most special season to date for Bahr.

“I’m so much happier to be on this team than I was my last three years.”