The Highlander Varsity swimming team is fresh off of a successful weekend at the state competition. The meet was held at the Sailfish Splashpark Aquatic Athletics Center in Stuart, Florida.  The girl’s team took second place while the boys took fifth place.

On the girls side they were lead by strong performances in relays. In particular the 200 Freestyle relay team of Andie Myers, Paige Hamilton, Abby Burke, and Carley Lowe whose time of 1:34.97 was good enough to earn them a gold medal. Bronze medals from Carley Lowe in the 200 yard IM, diver Emma Whitner and Abby Burke in both the 100 and 200 yard freestyles didn’t hurt either.

The 200 medly relay with Katarina Svetz, Andie Myers, Elizabeth Lomas and November Brown also did well finishing fourth. “We had a really good mentality going into the event.” said Brown. “We were all really pumped and ready to do our best.”

The boy’s team was pumped up even though they were a little undermanned. With only nine swimmers on the state team, everyone needed to step up. They were propelled by a second place finish from Haden Curley with a time of 4:27.88 in the 50 free and Andrew DuPont who finished fifth in the 200 yard freestyle with a time of 1:39.89.

This year Coach Mike Curley also added a special “senior relay” for 200 freestyle relay at the state meet. The four seniors, Alex Bosch, Nikhil Verma, Ben Grossman and Andrew Dunlap just missed making it to the state meet on their own, but Coach Curly wasn’t going to let them off that easy. He invited the four of them back to participate in the relay and be a part of the state team as a show of gratitude for the hard work throughout high school while they have been on the team. Even though they finished in sixteenth place, it was still the perfect way for all four of the boys to cap off their high school career.

Overall, the Lake Highland swim team performed well with another strong showing at the state meet. And after losing a lot of seniors last year, this year’s results are something to celebrate. Even though they didn’t win, they certainly worked harder and practiced longer then nearly every other school. At the end of the day, the season as a whole is something that these swimmers can be proud of, and that’s what really matters.