Girls Swimming is led by Co-Captains Emma Cheung ’23 and Katie Swan ’23.
Andover Girls Swimming and Diving dominated Deerfield on Saturday at home, winning 112.5-54.5. On Tuesday, the team took on Westford Academy and maintained its undefeated record, winning 96-74. Andover’s record now stands at 4-0.
Coming up against a strong Deerfield side, the team was a bit surprised that it dominated by such a significant margin. Molly MacKinnon ’24 noted that the team’s high energy throughout the match propelled it to victory.
“[We] were all very excited but also a little bit nervous because we were expecting Deerfield to be our biggest competition. But everyone was really excited because we were doing really well throughout the meet. In a bunch of events we were taking first, second, and third place. Which is pretty exciting because there’s typically only three people from each team who do each event. [When] diving started, which is about half-way through the meet, we were ahead 47-15. [We] had great energy when cheering for the divers. And then we carried that energy through to the relays. Which are always an exciting part of our meet,” said MacKinnon.
Elissa Kim ’24, came 0.03 seconds short of the school record in the 100-Meter Fly on Saturday. Addison Deng ’26 highlighted the superb performance by Kim and described her as competing on an extremely high level.
“It was really exciting to see one of our Uppers, Elissa Kim, swim in the 100-Meter Fly today. She usually doesn’t swim in the 100-Meter Fly but she was 0.03 [seconds] off our school record, which was very very close and a little unfortunate but that was a great swim and she was just at a different level. She was ahead of the entire field and it was great to see her swim,” said Deng.
In Tuesday’s meet against Westford Academy, Andover dominated the pool once again. Orla Naughton ’25 noted how being in the new Pan Athletic Center allowed for a bigger crowd, motivating swimmers and divers to perform at their best.
“The atmosphere of our meets is always a lot of fun, as we always support each other and make sure to cheer when our teammates are swimming. We also have our team customs like our cheer we do at the beginning of the meet to get us ready to start. Being in Pan also elevates our meet experience because we are able to host an efficiently-run event and get to do some fast racing with various other teams and more spectators,” said Naughton.
Captain of the Girls Diving, Madeleine Shaffer ’23, mentioned that there was success for each member of the diving team. She put an emphasis on Andover’s overall high performance, and was impressed with the way the team rose to the challenge.
“I’m really proud of how everyone competed in this meet. It was really solid. Everyone hit their dives. You know our goal is to get in clean and I think we had success most of the time and I couldn’t have asked for anything better. The other team was wonderful, they had good sportsmanship and it made for a really fun meet. Low pressure, but the stakes were still high and I feel like everyone really rose to the challenge. We came out on top for most of our events. Most of our diving events, the girls placed second but that’s okay. We did the best we could,” said Shaffer.
Addison Deng ’26 looks forward to some of the bigger competitions at the end of the season, including Andover/Exeter (A/E), Eastern Interscholastic Swimming and Diving Championships (Eastern’s), and New England Prep School Athletic Conference Division 1 Championships (NEPSAC). She hopes that the team will be able to maintain its ten year undefeated streak over Exeter this year as it is anticipating a tough match up.
Deng said, “[I’m] really excited for [A/E] because Exeter (Phillips Exeter Academy) has a really strong team this year. They’re probably one of our biggest competitors at NEPSAC and at Eastern’s. They’re just really fast and have got some great recruits for Freshman Year. They’ve been performing pretty well as well. But I do feel like we have a good chance at defeating them because we do have a record of going ten years undefeated at [A/E].”
Andover Girls Swimming and Diving will be hosting Loomis Chaffee on Saturday.
