Andover’s 400 Freestyle Relay finished in a time of 3:45.25, marking its fastest time in the event this season.
Andover Girls Swimming & Diving swept the top four places in the first individual event of the day, the 200 freestyle, beating the closest Deerfield swimmer by 3.08 seconds. This past Saturday, the team traveled to Deerfield and clinched a 96-82 win. The team’s record now stands at 4-2.
Despite missing two swimmers, Andover dominated Deerfield and had swimmers place first in 9 events, according to Grace Hwang ’22.
Hwang said, “Two of our swimmers [were out]. One of our swimmers was sick and the other [was busy], but I think our whole team did a really good job making up for that even though our team got a little smaller. I think we did a very good job compensating for that.”
According to Gwen Empie ’21, the team’s goal for the meet was to maintain high levels of energy before it starts preparing for Eastern’s.
Empie said, “Our goal for this meet was just to give it everything we got. Looking at scores going into it, we knew it was going to be less competitive than some of our other meets so we set our lineup up to do what we needed to do to maximize both points and efficiency for our team… Going into Deerfield, we had a little bit of a higher intensity week because we are going to have to start lowering our intensity going into Eastern’s. ”
According to swimmers Daphne Edwards ’23 and Empie, Veronika Kisova ’23 and Graeleigh Jones ’21 have demonstrated their strengths as swimmers through their versatility.
Edwards said, “Veronika has been a very strong swimmer this whole season and she is really good [at] switching from her five hundred right into the relay, which is special.”
“I think Graeleigh has been a really strong asset for our team—both her individual events and her contributions in our relays are very helpful…. Also, she is just a great teammate. She is always the first one to congratulate you after a race and she’s just a great person to have around,” continued Empie.
Andover Diving also won against Deerfield on Saturday. Both teams supported each other this weekend, especially when divers competed with new dives, according to Sophia Blaine ’22.
Blaine said, “The energy throughout the meet was stressful but exciting. It always made me super happy when someone did a new dive and came out of the water and both teams were cheering. We were really supportive of each other because we know what it feels like to try a scary dive and not know how it will turn out.”
Divers going to Eastern’s must prepare eleven dives for the meet. Within the next few practices, the team will work on maximizing the degree of difficulty in dives, according to Ingrid Appen ’22.
“The next meet is Easterns, so it’s four days long and [we have] eleven dives. We have to work on a lot more dives and try to get some more challenging skills. The meet is in Pennsylvania, so two of the days are just on the bus, [since] it is a nine hour bus drive,” said Appen.
Andover Girls Swimming & Diving will compete next at Eastern’s in Pennsylvania.
