Swim team dives to state
NC made it past county, sending fourteen members of the team to state this year. In the future, NC hopes to send more swimmers to county and state to better represent the school as a whole. “It felt very humbling to make it to state this year. It was a very happy moment for me because I felt like all of my hard work was starting to pay off,” sophomore Meghan Armstrong said.
February 14, 2019
The swimming season, lasting through winter, ended Saturday, February 9 at the state meet. With the team practicing every Monday through Thursday for an hour and a half and participating in meets almost every Saturday, NC swimmers felt prepared for their state meet.
“We did tapering during the week before the state meet, where the athletes would practice less intensely than they did throughout the year. The purpose of this is to regain energy that you would spend in normal practices throughout the year. This helped me feel very prepared for state,” Magnet sophomore Jackson Kutsche said.
Fourteen members from NC made it to state this year, hosted at McAuley Aquatic Center located at Georgia Tech. The state meet lasted for two days, the first day focused on preliminaries where swimmers competed to the best of their abilities against rival teams in order to qualify for finals the next day. The second day, swimmers who made it to finals, only the top thirty out of each event, competed and only the top twenty could score points for their team.
Five swimmers made it to the finals from NC: senior Ava Wonn, freshman Jamie Hockey, junior Sydney Armitage, sophomore Meghan Armstrong, and Kutsche. Kutsche in the 50 free, making 15th place overall earning six points for NC, and the 100 free, winning 21st place overall. The girls 200 medley relay team and sophomore Meghan Armstrong made 17th overall earning eight points for NC. Armstrong also made it to the finals in two individual events, the 100 free, making 16th overall, and 100 back, making 15th overall, in total earning 11 points for NC.
“Swimming is something that I really love and making it to state for the third year in a row was a really big accomplishment for me. By doing so, I know I can push myself more in order to get further next year,” Armitage said.
Incredibly pleased with how the state meet ended, the team looked back at this season as a successful one compared to previous years. The team hopes to continue to surpass their achievements in upcoming years by increasing the number of swimmers qualifying for county and state.
