Standing behind the block, listening to the thousands of spectators roar, feeling the nerves escalate into excitement. Swimmers at the Ohio High School State meet worked for months to reach this point of fruition in their training.

The SHS girls swim team had four individual qualifiers for the most competitive high school meet in Ohio. The swimmers who competed are:

Priscilla Wu, senior: 200 medley relay, 50 freestyle, 100 breaststroke, 200 freestyle relay
Mary Fry, senior: 200 medley relay, 50 freestyle, 100 freestyle, 200 freestyle relay
Jory Gould, senior: 200 medley relay, 50 freestyle, 200 freestyle relay
Hannah May, junior: 200 freestyle, 100 freestyle, 200 freestyle relay

The preliminary session took place in Canton, Ohio on Fri. Feb. 26. Finals were the following day. Swimmers with times in the top 16 in prelims move on to the finals session.

Wu said, “It was really exciting to swim an individual event at State. I was very happy that our 200 free relay did so well, and it was a great end to my high school swimming career.”

Wu swam the 50 freestyle at finals and placed 10th overall. The 200 freestyle relay also qualified for finals. They were seeded sixth and finished seventh on the podium.

Fry said, “The 200 free relay was so much fun. We knew that it was one of our better relays so we got really excited to swim it in prelims. I think that the relay did very well.”

Moving forward, swimmers will transition into club swimming to complete their winter seasons and then begin the spring and summer seasons.

Gould said, “I only swim high school in the winter so I have a long break until I start swimming again. In the summer season I swim with the Blue Ash YMCA along with a lot of other Sycamore swimmers.”