Although the Varsity swim team has suffered losses in numbers due to the sheer amount of graduating seniors from the past couple of years, the swimmers of SHS provided a strong performance at the GMC meet on Feb. 3.

  Overall, the boys’ team finished second behind Mason, and the girls’ team placed third behind Mason and Lakota West. While SHS might not have secured first place, a few of the boys did manage to win their events.

  Freshman Erik Menchhofer won the 500 freestyle with a time of 4:52.72; junior Samuel Risma won the 100 freestyle with the time of :48.49; and junior Robert Schramm won the 50 freestyle with the time of :22.24.

  Sophomore Carson Foster not only won the 200 freestyle and 100 butterfly, but he also broke Mason’s pool record in both events. His times were 1:39.42 and :50.43, respectively.

  For team events, SHS won the 200 freestyle relay, which had senior Alex Newberg, Schramm, Risma, and Foster on the lineup. The 400 freestyle relay, swam by Risma, junior Elliot Carl, Foster, and Menchhofer, also resulted in a victory for the team.

  The swimmers who were placed on early taper, while not quite winning their race, did happen to drop an immense amount of time. Freshman Jozy Allen in particular skimmed off 12 seconds in her 200 freestyle and 16 seconds off of her 500 freestyle.

  “Our swimmers did some awesome swimming at the GMC’s. With so many new swimmers, it’s cool to see how they responded to the training. We had a lot of all time bests on our team. Quite frankly, we did better than I thought we were going to,” said Dr. Daniel Carl, head coach of Varsity.

  At the end of the meet, the GMC conference named Foster as Swimmer of the Year and Carl as Coach of the Year.

  “I felt very honored. I mean it’s really the work that Stephen [Langdon] and the swimmers put into the season. Our team didn’t necessarily have to swim fast but they did. They raced,” Carl said.

  But the GMC meet is not the final race for the Varsity team. Swimmers will continue to, or start to, taper down for Feb. 10’s sectionals meet. Sectionals will be the last meet for most swimmers unless they reach the time requirement for a event, granting them entry to the district meet.  

  However, certain Varsity swimmers who did not get to swim their favorite events during sectionals have the possibility to swim again at Feb. 11’s Fred Cooper meet, a separate meet for the JV team.

  “The end of the season will is both sad and happy, sad because swim season is the only time we get to spend time with some people and happy because we get to support and watch each other reach our goals or surpass them,” said Ania Campbell, 11.