WA Girls’ Swim and Dive (WASD) blew their competition, Bedford High School, out of the water at their home meet on Saturday, Jan. 25, at a home meet at the Beede Center in Concord. WASD was able to start off with a strong lead against Bedford, and upheld it throughout the meet. This lead can be credited to key swimmers on the team and good technique that has been perfected during practice.
Although WA did win, no official score was released. According to junior Andrew Sperry, the scorers stopped counting at sometime in the meet as WA was so far ahead of Bedford.
Swim meet events always ascend in the same order. Therefore, the meet started out with the medley relay event. A medley relay involves four different races in each lane, and each participant does one stroke. The order of the strokes is backstroke, breakstroke, butterfly, and freestyle. This relay ended with lane four winning, which consisted of senior captains Katie Hall and Maddie Poirier, alongside seniors Rosey Deeks and Charlotte Aeder.
Following this was the individual medley (IM), which was won by sophomore Evelyn Hale. Similar to a relay medley, an IM consists of all four strokes. The difference is that there is only one swimmer, and the order of strokes is butterfly, breakstroke, backstroke, and freestyle.
The last event before the halfway point in the meet was the 50 freestyle (free) in three heats. Although there are three heats, only one of them counts towards the end score of the meet. Having three heats allows swimmers to have a chance to shorten their times as well as try out new events they haven’t in the past.
The halfway point allows the swimmers who have not been in the water yet a ten minute period to warm up. Following this was the 100 butterfly and two heats of the 100 freestyle. Subsequently, was one of the longest and most difficult events of the meet: the 500 free. This event is about seven minutes and the swimmers go back and forth across the pool twenty times.
“[The 500 free] is all in your head,” junior swimmer Scarlett Barnes said. “You got to go into it with a positive mindset or it’s going to be really hard to succeed.”
WASD ended up with junior Ailish Donahue placing first in the event, and Barnes placing second.
Following the 500 free was another relay, and the 100 backstroke, both of which WA placed first in. Lastly, came the 400 free relay. This involved four different swimmers in each lane, going across and back, and then another swimmer immediately jumping in after.
This concluded the WA girls’ swim meet against Bedford. Soon after, it was announced that the girls did win the meet.
During practices, WA plans to keep the good team morale up, as well as work on their times to qualify and prepare for Dual County Leagues (DCLs).
“[During practices] I’m definitely going to work on my speedwork and underwaters, but really whatever the coaches throw my way is what i’ll be working on,” Hall said.
WASD will have their next DCLs next week, with the divers competing on Wednesday, Jan. 29, and the swimmers competing on Saturday, Feb. 1. Both meets are at the Beede Center, and who they will be competing against is to be determined.
