Girls’ Swimming Loses to Loomis
Attacking the last turn of her 100-meter butterfly, lower Sydney Kang heard the roaring of the crowd. She surged off of the wall and breached the surface of the water, body lengths in front of the other swimmers. With each powerful stroke, Kang distanced herself from the rest of the field, until it was her against the clock. She touched the wall, and the scoreboard read 1:01.24, a New England record.
Girls’ Varsity Swimming and Diving traveled down to the Loomis Chaffee School on Saturday. The meet was the season opener for the team, and it came down to the final 4 x 100 relay. Despite several individual accomplishments, Big Red was defeated with a score of 89-97.
The team had trouble shaking off the rust of break. “I think another challenge was getting everyone back in shape from break at the beginning of the season,” prep Sofia Morais said. “Not everyone swam over Thanksgiving.”
While the Exeter pool is in yards, Loomis’ is in meters. This changed the nature of the events, forcing swimmers inexperienced in meter pools to adjust. The team tried to train for the meter pool by altering their practices in the days leading up to the meet. “Loomis is hard to prepare for because we don’t really have the opportunity to simulate a meter pool,” senior and co-captain Maddie Machado said. “We did our best to prepare well for races with a bit of specialization work towards the end of this week.”
“When preparing for Loomis at practice, coach Lundy [Smith] made sure we were swimming a lot of yardages so that we would be ready for the 25-meter pool instead of the usual 25 yards,” Machado added.
During the meet, upper Leila Herman noted that some swimmers stood out from the rest. “Sydney was amazing as always, she did a great job in all her events,” Herman said. “Wynter also did a great job in the 100 back.”
Morais had highlights of her own. “My favorite moment of the meet was Claire Fu’s 100 breaststroke, where she was neck to neck with another girl,” she said. “In the last 25 meters, she pulled ahead to almost a full body length!”
Machado added that the newest swimmers smashed expectations. “The first meet of the season is always a little scary and intimidating, and I was very impressed with how our preps … handled the pressure,” she said.
Besides the individual swimmers, the team also credited their success to the energy that each person brought to the swim meet. “The team always has great energy, if you ask me,” upper Ursie Wise said. “We are all in support of one another and really enjoy each other’s company!”
Wise noted that the preps contributed significantly to the team spirit. “I love the preps on the team this year! They’re all so energetic and get along so well,” she said. “They make great additions to the dynamic.”
Despite this close loss, the team is not looking back. “More grind. Never stops,” Wise stressed. “Looking forward to more meets and faster times.”
Girls Swimming and Diving will race Loomis again at the end of the season. In the meantime, the teams’ sights are set on their next opponent: Greenwich Academy. “We’re looking forward to a restful but productive winter break,” Machado said. “[We’ll] come back ready to race Greenwich Academy at the beginning of January.”