The girls swim and dive team is on their way to defend their 2A Division Districts and State title.
The team is looking to win it all again and has a good shot, with 18 returning and new swimmers already qualified to race in the post season, and many more expected to qualify by the time the KingCo meet rolls around.
“We’ll be kind of in the middle of the pack in terms of dual meets,” coach Kris Daughters said. “But I think once we get to the District championships we’re going to be one of the top teams there.”
The team is currently 3-2 with tough losses against Newport and Skyline but a big win against one of the team’s rivals, Issaquah.
Their next big meet is against Bellevue, a consistent KingCo powerhouse.
Many of the swimmers have already made State-qualifying times including freshmen Reegan Weber and Taylor Clay, sophomore Abby Russell, junior Sydney Hartford and seniors Lauryn Hepp, Ellie Hohensinner and Sierra Lesnik. A couple more are close to joining their teammates at State.
Because of their win last year, the team is definitely feeling pressure to perform well in the post season again, but they say it’s not their only focus for the season.
“I don’t think our main focus is to win. I think our main focus is to improve ourselves,” senior captain Hohensinner said. “As long as we improve as a team that will be the most important goal, but obviously winning state again would be really cool.”
Despite training hard and getting best times, in the end it will be the attitude of the swimmers and their desire to do well that will help them in the post-season.
“It’s really going to depend on if the girls come together and everyone can improve in the last part of the season to get us points,” Daughters said. “They have to be confident and swim aggressively and sort of want to perform at a level that will allow us to be first place at Districts and maybe top three in the State.”
Even with the loss of many strong swimmers from previous years, the team is not far behind the strength they had last year and are hoping to defend their Districts and State titles.