Girls' Swimming and Diving Dominates Deerfield
Barreling towards the wall in the last 15 yards of a 50-yard freestyle, lowers Sydney Kang and Andrea Luo and upper Haya Firas quickly distanced themselves from the rest of the field. Surging into the finish, powered by the roar of the crowd, Kang, Luo and Firas placed first, second and third, posting times of 24.28, 26.76 and 27.64, respectively. Firas touched 0.13 seconds ahead of Suffield’s fourth-place swimmer to secure the 1-2-3 for Big Red.
Last Saturday, Big Red Girls’ Varsity swimmers pulled through to defeat Deerfield Academy. With a final score of 92-88, the team continued a trend of close competition with the Doors—the past two dual meets against Deerfield have both been close wins.
According to Luo, the team’s previous success galvanized the swimmers to continue to excel. “Because we were coming off a win against Milton Academy, we were motivated to keep the streak going,” Luo said.
Senior and co-captain Wynter Sands concurred, noting the advantage of the game’s home location. “I think the fact that we were finally at home with a home crowd, including Principal Rawson, to cheer us on really both boosted our team spirit and our motivation to impress,” she said.
Based on the results, there is no doubt that Big Red was impressive in the pool. As senior and co-captain Maddie Machado noted, there was more than one 1-2-3 sweep. “In the 50-yard freestyle, we had a really exciting 1-2-3 finish, and it happened again in the 100-yard breaststroke with [prep] Claire Fu, [senior] Chloe Malikotsis and [lower] Ginny Vazquez.” Fu won both the 100 breaststroke and 100 butterfly.
Sands further highlighted Luo’s performance in the 100 butterfly. “As her last meet before taking a lengthy break due to a shoulder injury, she performed amazingly in both her individual events and her relays, leading off the winning 200 freestyle relay and anchoring the winning 200 medley relay,” she said.
When asked about the team’s plan for future meets, Machado explained that the team still has a few more in-season meets before the final championship at Interschols. Before then, they will work on the finer aspects of swimming. “We are working on a new program with Mrs. Nydick involving meditation and yoga that will help us prepare better, mentally and physically, for the challenges of racing,” she said.
Head coach Lundy Smith expressed his excitement and anticipation for the rest of the team’s season. “I’ve been ecstatic about the efforts of all of the girls during our practices this term,” he said. “More than anything else, they’ve remained positive, happy and supportive of each other during our practices and meets.”
Sands said that the team will “keep doing what we’ve been doing every day this season. We’re going to keep training hard together, hype each other up and do the sport we love.” As Big Red prepares to face Suffield Academy this Saturday, the team will train with the same go-getter mentality.