photos by Siobhan Miller, story by Libby Hyde

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Varsity swim team captains seniors Claire Fisher and Maggie Allen reported having high hopes for this upcoming swim season. Practices started 2 weeks ago, and the first meet is scheduled for Dec. 10 at Longview Community College against Grandview High school.

According to Allen, this year there was an influx of freshmen and new swimmers who tried out for the team. Fisher said there were a lot of freshman who had previously swam on club teams, so STA has a higher potential with new swimmers.

“On the first day of tryouts, you could already tell they were going to make a big impact on the team and how far we will go in state this year,” Allen said.

With Fisher estimating athletes giving about 20 hours per week to practicing and devoting their time to swimming, she has high hopes for more swimmers reaching state competition this season.

“We did lose a lot of our girls that swam at state last year…we do have a lot of girls that are close to state cut, so hopefully we will have a lot of girls make it to state,” Fisher said.

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According to Allen, she predicts that Notre Dame de Sion will be STA swim team’s biggest competition this season because STA competes against them for the ILC (Independent League Championship), in which schools in the area compete against each other. During Allen’s first two years, STA placed first, but last year, Sion took first with STA coming in second.

With state swimmers from last year graduating and moving away, both team captains anticipated some challenges for the STA swim season.

“Every season brings a new challenge of trying to regain the closeness we had the previous year,” Allen said.

Both captains agreed the key to success this season will be team unity.

“One of the things coach always talks about is ‘swim for others, not for yourself,’” Fisher said. “We always make sure everyone has someone cheering them on at the end of their lane.”