The girls’ swim and dive team finished in the top half of the Suburban North Conference Championship.
“We got 5th place out of 12 so we really didn’t do bad at all,” Rebecca Kaufman said. “It was a great season and we hope to do even better next year.”
The 2-day swim meet is a challenging event to adjust to for the athletes, according to Kaufman. Swimmers must make the Top-16 in the preliminary round to swim in Day 2 for the final round, and Kaufman said the conference has changed a lot in the last year.
“It was a new experience for everyone on the team,” Kaufman said. “There were more teams this year, we were there all night, and it was very stressful.”
In the past, the Suburban North Conference only included six teams from around the area. But, this year, 12 teams competed for the conference championship title.
“It was a very long night,” Kaufman said. “When a regular meet would be one heat per event, there were five heats of every event. So in other words, there was 60 races, plus diving.”
Kaufman thinks this put added stress on the already nervous swimmers.
“The other teams were all really good. So going from swimming against six teams, and it ending at like 6 p.m. 7 p.m., to not getting home until 10 o’clock was rough.”
Despite adjusting to the new changes, she feels proud of herself and her teammates.
“We put up a fight,” Kaufman said. “I’m proud of everyone.”
