by Madi Hayter|

Moving into the winter season, the girl’s swim team is excited for a new year. These 28 girls, four of whom are state swimmers; are preparing for a new season.

Part of preparing for the new season is getting to know each other, through team-building time.

“We do pasta dinners every night before a meet, carb loading. We do a bunch of team things together, like lunch or breakfast if that’s what you would call it, after Saturday morning practices and stuff like that,” junior McKenzie Still said.

This year, there are many returning members and a few new freshmen. Senior Magda Bronakowska has been on the team since her freshman year, she has been swimming for most of her life.

“When I was younger, my dad; he was scared of water when he was growing up, so when he grew up, he said I don’t want our daughter to be the same way,” Bronakowska said. “So they just enrolled me into swimming lessons and I have been swimming ever since.”

December 18 is the girl’s first swim meet. To prepare for the meets, the girls practice six days a week, Monday through Saturday.

When going to meets, “you’re picked for four events, depending on your times. Most of them are two relays, and two individual events. It’s ranked from slowest to fastest (relays). There are 23 events.” Jones said.

The strokes you swim are determined by the coaches based on your time.

“Practice is two and a half hours, for the first 30 minutes we do dry land- which is just stretching, exercising,” sophomore Abigail Jones said. “It’s at the community center. We are swimming, non stop. Maybe 15 second breaks between a set.

Still did dive last year, she describes the two as very contrasting sports.

“Swim you have to have a lot of athletic ability and stamina because you have to swim for a long period of time. Diving is more of a head game, you have to get yourself to be able to the thing,” Still said. “Diving is hard because you have to mentally prepare yourself to do things it takes a lot of guts to get you there in front of everyone and do that.”

School swim takes a lot of time out of social life due to how seriously it has to be taken. Some describe it as a lifestyle, or as who they are as a person. Swimming is all about shaving seconds off your races. A lot of sacrifices are made.

“[You] just have to keep swimming and just doing it more. When you do practices try your best, just swim as fast as you can.” Jones said.

“You have to eat healthy, practice a lot- obviously, and work your hardest because it’s not easy to take time off your races.” Still said.

The love for swimming goes beyond competitiveness for some.

“When I get in the water it clears my head,” Still said.

Swim team is something important to these girls, they work hard to form a team and support each other and strive for a win.

“We’re off to a good start,” Coach Murphy said.