On Saturday Feb. 11, the HHS swim team hosted the Regional Meet at Godwin Natatorium at JMHHsU. Out of the 29 teams in the region, the HHS guys placed 18th, and the HHS girls placed 15th overall. The team in total sent one of the largest groups of swimmers to regionals that it had in a long time getting a total of 14 competitors.

Casey Wilson is a senior and four year swimmer at HHS. This has been Wilson’s first experience at a regional meet, and she explains what it means to her to make it there.

“It meant a lot to me to represent HHS at regionals mainly because I had never been, so it was a totally new thing to me,” Wilson said. “The best part was probably just being there. It’s been my goal to go to regionals since sophomore year, so just being there was great.”

Regionals is not a meet everyone can make, it involves going to the conference meets and placing in a race to qualify. Wilson shares what she had to do to compete at regionals.

“In order to get to the meet, I really had to train for my events and focus on little things while swimming that could help me drop time. At conference, the top six finishers advance, and I came in sixth, so I just barely squeaked in,” Wilson said.

Andrew Rath, who is also a senior, has made it to regionals all four years of being on the swim team. Rath believes this year has improved from previous meets.

“In comparison to previous years the team as a whole did fantastic, usually we go into regionals just trying to get personal bests, but this year we scored a lot of points, swam a lot of [Personal Records] and have five swimmers on the way to states,” Rath said.

The five swimmers who have qualified for the state competition are Andi Fox in the 100 yard breaststroke and Urie Conis, Kyle Brown, Christian Rodriguez and Andrew Rath in the 200 yard freestyle relay. Not only did the relay qualify for states, but it also broke a 14 year standing record by almost a second.

Rath explains how ready he was for fast swims at the meet.

“I was definitely excited going into regionals knowing we were going to have some great swims. I’m even more excited now seeing what we’re capable of in terms of times as we advance to the state level,” Rath said.

In terms of competition, this meet is a lot faster paced and has faster swimmers than other meets throughout the season.

“Regionals is a huge meet with [29] teams. It is highly competitive with a few swimmers previously competing in the US Olympic trials. It’s usually pretty crowded and hot, but when it comes time to swim it’s definitely one of the best meets,” Rath said.

For Wilson and a few other seniors competing on the team, this was their last meet competing for HHS, and Wilson was emotional throughout the day.

“It was a pretty bittersweet day, knowing that it was probably the end of high school swim, and I had hoped that my relay team would get a state cut time and advance, but all good things do have to come to an end at some point,” Wilson said.

Rath still has the state meet to compete in, but looking back on his swim team career, he realizes what he will miss most about the team.

“I’ve been swimming since I was young and I have to say that in terms of swimming, the high school team has had the biggest effect on my life, and has led me to some of my most memorable experiences,” Rath said. “I will definitely miss the team bonding aspect of the swim team the most, which introduced me to a lot of great people and to some of my best friends.”