The girls swim and dive team had a fantastic meet last night at the Forest Hills Aquatic Center. All of the hard work that the team has been putting in every day definitely showed after they defeated Holland and gained their first win of the season scoring 107-73.

The meet began with the 200-yard medley relay where freshman Maggie Holt, sophomores Nora Magers and Kayla Quach, and senior Sydney VanLente started the sweep by taking first with a time of 2:00.32. Later in the meet, freshmen Allison Meny and Mady Scarlato, junior Ashley Schenck, and Sydney VanLente kept the sweep going in the 200-yard free relay with a time of 1:48.60.

“I feel that my races went well, I was very close to some of my best times and I am happy with the direction the season is going,” Sydney said. “The team did so great and this win definitely boosted the team’s overall morale!”

The meet continued with the individual races and the first-place spot in every event was taken by an FHC swimmer. Sydney continued her strong performance by beating the second-place finisher in the 100-yard free by ten seconds, earning a time of 56.03. In addition to Sydney’s performance, Maggie beat out her opponent by six seconds and obtained a time of 1:05.96 in the 100-yard back. With this time, Maggie was also able to qualify for the MISCA meet. Maggie’s teammate, Allison, was on a roll last night, in the 50-yard free and 100-yard fly, both ending in a very close race. Finally, Ashley Schenck took on the rigorous 500-yard free and earned herself a personal best time of 5:49.01 taking over the second place finisher by a minute and twenty seconds.

“I feel I did great tonight! I got a personal best in the 500 free. I also did pretty well on my 200 free despite the minor mishap of the beep going off early which led to a quick dip and then restart of the race,” Ashley said. “As a team we did great! It was a great meet with lots of team bonding and spirit.”

Just like the rest of the team, the divers had an outstanding performance, even though they only had four of their six girls competing. Junior Rachael Yeager had an incredible score of 199.95 and was able to snag first place. Along with her impressive performance, the other three juniors, Lily Zorn, Jia Niemeyer, and Taylor Greemann were all able to hit their dives and earn themselves personal best scores.

“We did really well, it was the first meet we won all year and we also scored higher than we normally do, putting us in a really good position for conference,” Lily said. “It felt really good to get that first win, we have been wanting it for so long, and I am just really happy and proud of all of the girls.”

After a successful night, the girls look forward to their next meet on Tuesday, October 4, at the Forest Hills Aquatic Center against Forest Hills Northern/Eastern at 6:00 p.m.