St. Cloud Apollo, ROCORI Combining Boys Swim Teams

COLD SPRING - The ROCORI and St. Cloud Apollo boys swimming teams will be combining this fall under a cooperative sponsorship.

The ROCORI school board approved the co-op for the swim team on Monday night. Both ROCORI and Apollo were expecting a low number of boy swimmers to be a part of their varsity level teams next year.

ROCORI superintendent Scott Staska says a possible factor for their lower number of swimmers, are growing interests among students in other sports like soccer, lacrosse and trap shooting.

"Just the options that are available to students is one, the other is not being a successful team over a period of time kind of wears folks down too. So our thought is if we can combine strengths with Apollo, the students on both sides should have better experiences."

Staska says swimming practices for the team will be held at both schools.

"The athletic directors and coaches would still like practices to primarily to be at the home sites. ROCORI boys will practice here at ROCORI and Apollo boys will practice at the Apollo site."

There will be one coach for the program, but the selection hasn't been made yet. Staska says there are no cost implications for the co-op, since practices for students will stay at their schools.

Earlier this year, Apollo also combined their hockey team with Tech High School. There's also growing concern about a lack of players in their boys golf program.