The girls swim and dive team has worked relentlessly this season, pushing towards their goal, which was to place highly at competitive meets such as sectionals and state. For the 2024 season, their goal was achieved by winning sectionals and therefore qualifying for state. They made it to state finals placing 16th in state, breaking multiple school records. The girls had an outstanding season, all thanks to their teamwork.

The girls created goals for themselves and as a team to motivate them throughout the season. Winning sectionals was something that was important for them because last year they were so close. This motivated them even more to achieve what they were hungry for. 

“Going into the season our biggest goal was to win sectionals because last year we lost by one point,” senior Natalie Tuerk said. “In the back of our minds we also really wanted to qualify our relays for state.”

Strategically, they planned out which swimmers could go in which categories to calculate their best chances of winning. With the help of each individual swimmer, it adds up the points that help the team overall. By figuring this out, they were able to take the first place win in sectionals, eventually leading to a win in state.

 “We focused a lot on what we were going to swim at sectionals, starting from the beginning of the year,” sophomore Katherine McCarthy said. “We were planning things like what people do we need to put in what events or what people do we need to put on what relays in order to win or qualify those events for state.”

The girls worked hard every single day, whether it was in or out of the pool, to achieve their win at sectionals. They weren’t just going to practice to mess around, they were serious about winning sectionals and focused on that goal during practices. Each individual swimmer had their own goals, but all of their goals added up into one big goal that all they worked for.

“Going into the season everyone had the same goal of winning sectionals,” senior Sophia Amendola said. “Every day you knew that you were training and you had an intention in practice that this was for winning sectionals.”

To stay active and healthy outside of the high school team, most girls on the team do club swim, as well as play on the water polo team in the spring, so they are in the water almost year round. Even though they are doing this personally, it helps the team do better during the high school season.

“There’s a handful of people that do club swim and they do that year round and it’s the same intensity as high school swim,” Tuerk said. “As a team, a lot of us play water polo and a lot of us do lifting through York so we stay active and well prepared for the high school season.”

The team has both morning practices and afternoon practices, where they are either down in the pool or in the fitness center working on lifting. Both practices ensure that the girls are working toward their goals and creating an environment where hard work is important for achieving their goals.

“Knowing that the effort we put in would help us achieve our goals for the season really helped us get through a hard practice or a morning swim or lift,” McCarthy said. “If you didn’t want to get up, you knew what was going to help you get better and be able to achieve your goal.”

Even through the tough mornings and intense competition during the season, the girls knew exactly what they were training for. These goals that they kept in place helped them work for motivation. It’s all about the mindset during training, all the training leads to positive outcomes.

“We always warm up as a group and then we do an aerobic set to get our heart rate up and build our endurance,” junior Samantha Szejner said. “We then split into different groups so we can cater to what we’re going to swim.”

Even though the girls all do different events and relays, they all work together to train and help each other to achieve their individual goals. As a group, they all start by doing some sort of workout and then they split into groups so they can focus on the needs of each swimmer so while they are working as a team, they are working all together to help get to the place they need to be to succeed.

“While it is an individual sport, you’re scoring points to help the team win.” Amendola said. “It doesn’t matter if it was necessarily the time you were going for, you’re still contributing to help the team.”

Swimming is considered an individual sport, as you are swimming by yourself and working toward your personal goals, the community within the girls swim and dive team makes it a group sport. By supporting each other and working with each other, they are all working for the same goal and making friends within that.

“The community is the best that I have been a part of at York,” Amendola said. “They are all truly my best friends and everyone wants to see everyone succeed. If you come to any of our meets, you can see that we line the pool deck at every single race and are cheering for everyone.”

While it is important to each individual swimmer that they achieve the time and place they want, it matters even more that they are contributing points for the team. Every single point and second matters for the team, even if it doesn’t matter for the individual swimmer.

“We had goals,” Tuerk said. “Yes, they were lofty goals, and we didn’t know if we were going to accomplish them, but we stayed true and put in the work and we saw the results from that.”