Grace Hitchcock ’20, left, swam in the 200-Meter and 400-Meter Freestyle.
Competing in its first meet of the season away at Choate, Andover Girls Swimming & Diving fell in a close 97-89 matchup.
Although Andover’s pool differed greatly from that of Choate’s, the team showed a strong performance in its opening meet of the season, according to Hailey Wadell ’21.
“Choate’s pool is a meters pool which is different from what we normally swim in (yards), so the times this weekend were a little off. However, we were all really happy to start the season with such a close meet. The Choate ladies had some strong swims, but we were able to take second, third, and fourth for a lot of the events.” wrote Wadell in an email to The Phillipian.
Grace Hitchcock ’20 wrote in an email to The Phillipian, “We had a strong start to the season. Although we didn’t win, we had a lot of great swims, especially considering that we had only had three varsity practices before the meet… It sets us up great to continue into the rest of the season.”
Ashley Vensel ’22 took first place in Girls 100 Short-Course Meter (SCM) Freestyle with a time of 1:04.24 minutes, grabbing six points for Andover. In the Girls 200-Meter SCM Individual Medley, Graeleigh Jones ’21 took first place for Andover with a final time of 2:29.30 minutes, earning another six points for the team.
Outside of the pool, the team’s support for one another was evident during the 400-Meter SCM Freestyle relay, according to Vensel and Hitchcock.
“I’m just happy that we had just a lot of spirit and everybody was cheering for everyone which is awesome and it was just a great first meet,” said Vensel.
“This weekend’s meet was a great reflection of the team spirit already. It came down to the last leg of the last relay and, even though we didn’t end up winning, there was an outpouring of support, cheering, and excitement for the girls on the block,” wrote Hitchcock.
Moving forward, Andover looks to build off of Saturday’s performance with an emphasis on turns and kicks, according to Hitchcock and Wadell.
“Over the next week, though, we’ll be focusing more on team bonding and improving for the rest of the season. This is the time to be goal-setting and planning what we need to do to perform well throughout the bulk of our season and into championships.” Hitchcock wrote.
“We’re looking forward to Loomis [Chaffee]. This week is going to be a tough week as we train hard for Saturday. As a team we are hoping to improve on our turns and kicking this season so I’m looking forward to see how that will help our times. We are also doing team bonding at some point in the next week which is totally going to help with some adrenaline rushes along with the home pool atmosphere,” Wadell wrote.
In Girls 1-Meter Diving, Reese Pelletier ’20, Ora Cullen ’19, and Claire Davis ’20 had 13 points combined, taking the top three places.
Girls Swimming & Diving will face Loomis at home on Saturday.
