Mitchell Case is an ASU Cronkite School of Journalism student assigned to cover Barry Goldwater High School for AZPreps365.com

The Barry Goldwater High School swim team will have a lot of adversity to deal with this season, but senior Dwight Walden thinks the team has the ability to deal with all the challenges.

“Yeah, we got it,” he said simply.

The team had problems before anybody even got in the pool. As coach John Bundy described:

“One, just the shortened season," he said. "Normally, we start the first or second week of August. This year because everything got shut down, our pool actually got shut down along with something like 45 other schools, so we were all finding places to swim. Four and a half weeks ago my AD called me and said, 'I have good news and bad news. The good news, we have a pool to practice in, but you have to practice at 5:30 in the morning.”

Along with trying to find a pool, the Bulldogs had to deal with the loss of several key swimmers -- five senior boys and one senior girl -- from last season.

“It’s definitely a hard hitter because mainly being the only boy on the team, we can’t do relays, it’s been difficult to adjust to everything,” Walden said.

Added Bundy: “Because of COVID shutting everything down for the summer, all the local pools were closed down so our recruiting, getting eighth graders from our feeder schools did not go the way we wanted to."

Other Arizona schools could draw in swimmers from different clubs in their areas, but that wasn't the case for Barry Goldwater. It will have to rely heavily on bringing in and developing fresh talent.

Bundy is looking for both Walden, a standout in the 50 free and 100 free, and Mar Segarra Guillen, a talented breaststroker, to lead the team this year.

“(Walden) is just a stud athlete,'' Bundy said. "He’s off a second or two from qualifying for the 50 freestyle and we have Mar, who is just an awesome swimmer, who we expect to qualify at least for breaststroke.”

Walden, after narrowly missing state qualifying last season, is working hard to do it this season.

“My mindset is to mainly be able to make state in the 50 and 100,” Walden said, later adding: "I’ve been working on my underwater work coming out of my flip turns a lot.”

Even with the disadvantages of having a small group, the team has found a way to come together.

“We are more of like a family," Walden said. "Every time we go to a meet we are the underdogs because we only have six people so we have to come out and do our best and show we are still there."