Gallery • 9 Photos

Jewelia Rodriguez

Sophomore Kyle Brown swims the backstroke

On Friday, Jan. 20 the HHS swim team competed at home against the smaller, local teams of Central High School and Broadway High School. Unlike normal Friday meets, where the team may go out and celebrate together, it was straight home and straight to bed to prepare for a much larger and more competitive meet the next day. On Saturday, Jan. 21 the team traveled to the Gator Aquatic Center in Roanoke to compete at the All Timesland Invitational.

Senior Hannah Daniel competed in both meets and explains how tiring swimming that much can be.

“It’s pretty hard to compete in that many races. Usually, I only swim four races a day, but in those meets I swam 15 in the span of 24 hours. It’s mentally exhausting to get yourself into a competitive zone, plus it’s physically tiring to exert that much effort in the water that many times,” Daniel said.

The swimmers as a team had a record-breaking performance, compared to past teams at this meet. Out of 14 teams at the meet, the men’s team placed sixth overall and the women’s placed third overall. The invitational was set up to have a preliminary round and then a finals round if you qualified. Compared to past years almost everyone on the team was able to go to the finals in one or multiple races.

Daniel was one of the swimmers who had qualified for the finals, and she explains how rewarded she felt after making it.

“I was so excited to be in the finals. I made the B-finals for my individual events, and I was really pumped about that because I felt like my hard work was being paid off,” Daniel said. “I was a little scared to be competing with some of the best swimmers at the meet, but it also pushed me and made me better.”

In terms of competitiveness, the Saturday meet was not only much larger, but had faster competition as well. Freshman Grace Gabriele explains how different the two meets are from each other.

“The Saturday meet was definitely much more competitive than the Friday meet. As there were several Olympic trial qualifiers at the Saturday meet, it made for some great races,” Gabriele said.

For Daniel, she has been looking forward to competing at this meet every season HHS goes there.

“I loved the Timesland invitational. A lot of people don’t like the pool or the venue, but last year I had an exceptional meet, and this year was the same. So this meet has a fond place in my heart,” Daniel said.

Gabriele explains how meet situations like this can be difficult and shares what she does to prepare for these meets.

“To prepare for these meets I try and get lots of rest the day before and eat lots of carbohydrates,” Gabriele said.

Daniel says that her favorite part about the Saturday meet was being able to compete and watch the finals.

“I loved competing in the finals on Saturday night of the Timesland Invitational and setting some great personal records for myself,” Daniel said. “I also really loved watching the A-finals walk out under the fog machine and lights and loud music. It was really exhilarating.”