By Ray Hamill — A new swimming team is coming to the Hoopa Valley.

The newly-formed club is sanctioned by USA Swimming and will hold informational meetings and tryouts for boys and girls interested in joining up later this week.

The Hoopa Valley Swim Team will practice at the community pool in Hoopa Valley with eyes on potentially competing at USA Swimming meets in the near future.

“We have the pool in Hoopa and there’s never been a team there,” team head coach Kelly Nathane said. “So we’re just starting a new team out there.”

The new club will be open for kids aged 6-18 and is expected to practice and compete annually from April to October.

But Nathane stressed the team is not just for experienced swimmers, but also for any young swimmers who want to improve in the pool, and is open to anyone who can “swim from one end of the pool to the other.”

Tryouts and informational meetings will be held at the Hoopa pool on Friday at 6 p.m. and on Saturday at 4 p.m.

“We’re kind of waiting to see what the interest is,” Nathane said. “We want to give kids (in the Hoopa Valley) something to do and make them stronger swimmers all-around.”

The new team showcases the recent growth of the sport here on the North Coast.

This spring, for the first time ever there are three local high school teams competing in the pool — Arcata, Eureka and Del Norte — all of whom were on hand at a pair of high school meets at Cal Poly Humboldt over the past two weekends.

Last spring, five local high school swimmers qualified for the North Coast Section championships.

Because the Hoopa facility is an outdoor pool, the new team will not compete year round like the Humboldt Swim Club, which features 110 members this year and practices at the Arcata pool.

“We’re looking at (practicing) probably three or four days a week for this year and building to five or six days a week, depending on what our interest level is,” said Nathane, who added that she and the team organizers are “looking for what the community wants and needs” at this week’s informative meetings.

“We’re real excited to see where it goes,” added Nathane, who has 25 years experience as a coach and has been teaching swimming lessons for long than that.