Is there any better way to enjoy the warm California spring weather than spending the day at the pool? Well, let’s drive right in to see how this year’s swim went!

This year’s Varsity Swim team is coached by Coach Marissa and is comprised of 14 swimmers. This is my third year on the swim team, and it certainly was a memorable season!

Practice

We did a mix of weekly dry-land circuits and daily swim sets to train for the meets. We even had one morning practice this season! (It was super difficult to drag ourselves our of bed and be ready to jump in the pool at 6am) During dry-land we would first warm up by running around senior lawn. Then we would start our circuits which included burpees, jump squats, wall sits, planks, push-ups, and more. In the swim sets, we always started off with a 300 warm up. Our sets focused heavily on each stroke; we would focus on the form for our arms and legs separately, and then combine the two. The sets were tiring and difficult, but each set pushed us to improve.

Meets

This season we had a total of 10 meets: 2 non-league and 8 league meets. We swam against each school in our league twice. During the start of the season, we had some strong wins against Westside and Notre Dame Academy. We also swam against many extremely competitive schools, but that did not stop us from swimming our hardest. At each meet our goal was to drop seconds from our previous time, and many of us were successful in doing so. Many of us were also pushed out of our comfort zones when we swam difficult events. I would like to give a special shout-out to Mary M. ’25 who swam the 500 free (that’s 20 laps of freestyle!) at every meet! Having swam the 500 free at two meets this season, I know that is it definitely a very nerve-wracking event to swim. That event truly takes a lot of strength, dedication, and hard work! Way to go Mary!!

League Pre-lims

On April 28th we headed off to Harvard Westlake High School for the Mission and Sunshine League pre-lims. We are part of the Sunshine League, and other schools in our league include Marlborough, Louisville, Immaculate Heart, and Notre Dame Academy. Each of us were placed into 2 individual events, and the top 12 swimmers in each event would move onto finals. Despite our nervousness, we tried to swim as quickly as we could. While each of our teammates were swimming, the rest of us were on the bleachers cheering them on. When the results came our right after the meet, many of us qualified for finals!

Izzy M. ’23, Eliza G. ’25, Ana H. ’24, Rachel O. ’24, Audrey B. ’25, Giulia D. ’23, Talia L. ’24, Helen R. ’23, and I all qualified for finals!

League Finals

League Finals for Mission and Sunshine League were held at Crespi High School on April 19th.  This meet included both the girls and boys teams, so it was a very busy meet. Many of us continued to cut a couple seconds off our time. A special congratulations to our relay team (Izzy M. ’23, Eliza G. ’25, Audrey B. ’25, Giulia D. ’23) who took 3rd place in both the 200 free and the 400 free relay! Overall, we took 3rd place in the league!

CIF

Junior Izzy M. Qualified for CIF for both the 100 butterfly and 100 backstroke. She placed 15th overall at the Championship meet!! We are extremely proud of all the hard work and dedication Izzy has put into the season. She even swims double days, swimming practice at Marymount and her swim club. We cannot wait to see all the new personal records Izzy will set for herself next year!

Let’s end this swim spotlight with the swim team’s cheer: 

S-s-s-a-i-l-l-l-o-r

S-a-i-l-o-r AHOY AHOY AHOY

Let’s Go Sailors!