Leesville swim season ends with a splash

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The team won three out of their four meets. All the seniors will greatly miss the team and the experiences they all shared together.
The team won three out of their four meets. All the seniors will greatly miss the team and the experiences they all shared together.

When Matt Hurley, senior, was asked to describe his senior year swimming experience, he only used one word: “super-duper”. Well, one contraction.

As the regular swimming season draws to a close, many seniors are reminiscing about their season.

“It was an awesome season,” added Hurley, co-captain of the team. “The captains were awesome this year, the atmosphere was better and everyone seemed much more supportive.”

That seemed to be a current theme with all the swimmers.

“Last year, lots of good seniors graduated, and it was kind of scary not knowing how we’d be. But the seniors this year really stepped up, and we all improved as a team,” agreed Ali Moser, junior.

Winning three out of four regular season meets, the Pride really did step it up. The only regular season meet they lost was against Panther Creek High, but they beat them again in a 4-team meet, when Leesville swam against Wakefield, Green Hope and Panther Creek.

A clear highlight for most of the seniors we beating Enloe in their dual meet, which took place on December 20.

“Definitely the highlight of this season was that meet [against Enloe]. They have been a rival for so long, and they were really good this year, so pulling that off felt awesome,” said Hurley.

The rivalry became extremely obvious during the last Cap-8 meet which took place at Triangle Aquatics Centre on Saturday, Jan. 21.

Leesville went in feeling confident. With three regular season wins under their belt, they were sure a conference championship was in their future. For the majority of the meet, Leesville was in first place with points being earned by all the heavy hitters: Jordan Arata, Hannah Lincoln, Krysta Garbarino, and of course, Matt Hurley, all seniors.

Within the last 30 minutes, however, Enloe slowly crept to the top, finally topping Leesville in the last few minutes of the meet.

“Loosing to Enloe during the Cap-8 meet was definitely the pitfall of the season, especially because we thought we had them until the very end,” said Prenessa Lowry, junior.

Despite that disappointing loss, Leesville still ended up second in the conference, which is nothing to be ashamed of.

“Truthfully, this season was awesome,” said Hurley, “and I’m sad I won’t be returning next year.”

Hurley was also pleased with how well the regional and state meets went for the team.

“In both meets, Leesville did incredibly well,” gushed Hurley.

At the regional meet, the boys placed first. At states, the boys placed third and the girls placed seventh.

Hannah Lincoln, one of Leesville’s own, won MVP of the state meet– a huge feat, considering the state-wide competition.

She truly deserved the title, however. In the championship race, Lincoln broke her own 4A record in the 50 with a 23.26 and tied her state butterfly record with a 54.68.

“I’d never imagined myself in this spot,” Lincoln said. “ This year I was like ‘I’m going to make it to states, I’m going to make it to the final. I never knew I was going to win though.”

Overall, all of the seniors are happy with their season, and proud of all that Leesville has accomplished.

Way to represent the school well, Leesville swim team.

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