The focus that netted Manhattan High 388 team points to score second overall and numerous swim time improvements across the team last Wednesday came down to what coach Jerry Carpenter tells them about their competition.

“I always tell them, ‘we can only control what’s in our lane lines,’” Carpenter said. “‘What’s going on in your lane. That’s the only thing you can control.’”

Finishing second only to Lawrence Free State, MHS took sixth and eighth place in the 200 medley relay, third and eighth in the 200 freestyle relay, and fourth, sixth and ninth in the 400 freestyle relay to finish off the meet.

“Right now, it’s kind of hard sometimes to go from being a group of individuals to a team,” Carpenter said. “We’re starting to get the team going, but a lot of kids need to learn a lot more about that.”

Coming off from the first two meets of the season and into their only meet last week, several swimmers showed time improvements across the board as both young and experienced swimmers were able to pull in faster times and put points up on the board.

“We’re in a lot better shape and we’re all trying to work harder,” junior Tammie Melton said. “We want our times to get faster. Now we’re actually trying to push ourselves to improve.”

This week, the team goes to Salina South on Thursday and finish out the week at Olathe this Friday.