On Saturday morning your Newman swim team faced off against The Episcopal Knights from Baton Rouge. This week, with the loss of three of our best male swimmers, we were a little concerned about how the meet would turn out. Some of us had to prepare for events that aren’t our usual events like the 100 Fly and the 500 Free, both challenging events. In preparation, our coach designed rigorous practices that tested our endurance and stamina like never before. It was tough, and sometimes we didn’t think we would make it. Still, we overcame these challenges and powered on.

Finally, after a week of excruciating practices, it was the day of the meet. We arrived at the pool in the morning, and we began our warm-ups. As the meet progressed, the scores were looking close. Episcopal was winning events, and we were winning events- it was almost like a back and forth game of tug-of-war. When the meet was finished, we spent time conversing with our fellow teammates and opponents, eating lunch with them, and playing a legendary game of Frisbee that paralleled the results of our meet. Finally, the news we had all been waiting for arrived, and the results showed that we won, despite our challenging obstacles that we had to overcome. Both girls and boys teams won the meet, an amazing feat. Swimming is a team sport, but it is an individual sport as well. Every swimmer did a great job individually; our team made state qualifying times in 31 events, and 21 out of 27 swimmers qualified for state. This was great news to hear, and it validated all the hard work that we put in. Our next meet will be in on Thursday in Mandeville. Thank you for your support, and we hope to keep on bringing in the W’s.