Seaholm’s Swimmin’ Women finished fourth at the state tournament at Oakland University this past weekend, living up to the expectation that they would finish in the top six.
According to Assistant Girls Swim Coach Kristen Ruud, the state team, consisting of seventeen total swimmers and divers, had top swims by senior Alex Stephens in the 500 Freestyle, as well as the 400 Freestyle relay.
Ruud was thrilled with the relay’s performance.
“Best times by all four swimmers,” Ruud said. “We never thought it would go as fast as it did.”
Ruud also said the swim by Alex Stephens was exceptional.
“Her goal was to beat five minutes and ten seconds,” Ruud said. “She crushed it. As a senior, that was really exceptional.”
This year’s state meet marked a few personal bests for Stephens who qualified for the top eight for the first time in her high school career, placing seventh in the 200 Freestyle and fourth in the 500 Freestyle.
“I dropped a lot of time in my events and couldn’t have been happier with the way my senior season ended,” Stephens said.
The swimming state meet is a two day event where each swimmer must qualify in order to return for the second day.
“We [had] preliminaries on Friday,” Stephens said. “That’s for everyone to swim in. Then, the top sixteen fastest people make it back to the second day, the finals.”
On day two, the swimmers who placed 9th through 16th on day one compete amongst one another while those who places 1st through 8th do the same.
“There are two heats in the finals,” Stephens said. “The ninth through sixteenth swimmers are the consolation heat, and they swim first. You can’t move out of that heat even if you swim faster than the people in the finals heat.”
The finals heat works in a similar way.
“The second heat is for the first through eighth swimmers and again, you can’t get worse than eighth place even if you swim really slow,” Stephens said.
Sophomore Chelsea Abbott spoke highly of this year’s team.
“The team was stronger in both talent and depth this year than it has been in the past with more swimmers making it to finals than ever before,” Abbott said. “Our fourth place victory is a huge victory.”
Thane said the Seaholm team was up against some tough competition this year.
“The meet was a fight between four teams,” Thane said. “Mercy, Holland, Hudsonville and us, with Groves not completely out of the picture.”
Though Seaholm placed fourth, Thane said it was still a big accomplishment.
“Even though last year we got third, we did much better this year,” Thane said. “The scores between the top four teams were very close.”
Abbott has high hopes for next year’s state team.
“Hopefully next year we can knock out some of the top spots like Hudsonville and Mercy,” Abbott said.
The state meet was the last high school meet for senior Alex Thane, and her fellow seniors.
“It was a great meet for the seniors to end with because we have gotten better every year,” Thane said.
Stephens said this year’s experience at the state meet was altogether very positive.
“Overall, our team did amazing,” Stephens said. “We didn’t place as high this year, but it didn’t matter because we swam so well.”
Even the spirits of the swimmers who were not able to qualify for day two remained high.
“And even though some people didn’t make it back to the second day, that didn’t affect their attitude,” Stephens said. “They were jumping around and cheering, and it was so cool for me to be a part of it.”
Thane said that above winning, the team had fun, and that’s what made the meet so enjoyable.
“Most importantly, everyone had an amazing time,” Thane said. “It’s just sad that it’s over.”
