Chloe Ru ’27 swims in the 100 yard backstroke final.
This past weekend, Girls Swimming and Diving competed at the Eastern Interscholastic Swimming and Diving Championship (Easterns). Ultimately, the team earned a seventh place spot and contributed to a second-place combined placement–across both genders–for the team.
Ariana Zhao ’25 described the atmosphere at Easterns, emphasizing the impact and intensity of team spirit as swimmers cheered each other on throughout the meet.
“[Easterns] is one of the most exciting meets throughout the year because especially during every final session, the pool is packed. Every team’s obviously cheering for their own people, but whenever someone from your team’s racing, we’re all behind the lane. It gets really crowded, but everyone is cheering for each other. Since it’s really loud, it’s easy to get going in that kind of environment,” said Zhao.
Regarding the meet’s atmosphere, Katherine Feng ’27 added that individually, competing athletes maintained focus and ticked up their energy by listening to high-energy music. Feng personally opted for Travis Scott’s FE!N, which, she said, drove her to swim 58.24 in the 100-yard Fly, a personal best.
“Everyone was listening to hype music. My hype song was FE!N [by Travis Scott]. I had decided it was my hype song and it worked and it helped me [achieve a personal record] in my 100[-Yard Butterfly],” Feng said.
Easterns is among the more significant meets; therefore, in preparation for its races, Feng noted that the team focused on fine tuning small details. Additionally, she stressed the importance of perseverance throughout Easterns, a tiring and fast-paced meet.
“We did a lot of tapering. We did a lot of sprints and dives off the block and we tried our best to work on technique which also helped us. I think the strengths were that we were very persistent. We went through the whole meet, but one of the weaknesses was that everyone was very tired because we had a very short amount of time in between prelims and finals and then we had a short amount of time to get to bed and get ready for the meet. Everyone was really tired but everyone did really well in persisting through the meet and still going their best times,” said Feng.
Despite the Easterns’ tiring nature and the sports individuality, both the Boys team and Girls team combine to create a strong sense of camaraderie. Kennedy Leach ’25 described a crucial moment for Andover team spirit during the Boys 400-Yard Freestyle Relay.
“The end of the second final session, there was the boys 400-Yard Freestyle Relay—the entire girls team and the entire guys team was crowded behind Andover’s lane. We were all pretty much just screaming and shouting at the boys who were in the relay,” said Leach.
Leach also highlighted Captain Valencia Zhang ’25, who took initiative in the absence of the Girls Swimming’s Head Coach, Hillary Kavanagh. Moreover, Feng praised Zhao and the athletes who competed in the 400-Yard Freestyle Relay.
Leach said, “Our captain Valencia, she really stepped up and managed the whole team, coordinated with the coaches and everything, and she did a really good job keeping it together for the team.” Feng continued this sentiment saying, “Ariana Zhao did very well. [Also] I think all the girls on the [400-meter] free relay did very well. They went really fast.
While looking ahead to additional high-level competitions, including Andover-Exeter this Saturday and New Englands on March 8 and 9, Leach predicted that the team’s practices will tone down volume and increase in intensity, focusing specifically on small details.
“We have two meets left. We have Andover-Exeter, which is this upcoming weekend, and then we have New Englands in two and a half weeks maybe. I think what we’re going to be working on is tailoring technique and just fixing up the tiny details, because we’ve done a lot of work over the season. And so I think the next few weeks are just going to be tweaking and paying attention to our technique and making sure that everything is crisp and feels good. I don’t think that we’re going to be doing anything ridiculously hard,” said Leach.
As a continuation of the Academy’s longest preparatory rivalry, Girls Swimming will compete at Exeter this Saturday.
