After an exciting win last week, the girls swim and dive team was looking to keep their streak alive. Unfortunately, they weren’t able to beat out their strong rival team, Forest Hills Northern/Eastern.

The meet began with the 200-yard medley relay where sophomore Kayla Quach, junior Ashley Schenck, and seniors Annie Douma and Sydney VanLente, came in second place. The relay teams continued to stay hot throughout the meet. Kayla, Sydney, and freshmen Maggie Holt and Allison Meny, all contributed to their second place spot in the 200-yard free relay earning a time of 1:47.80. The meet ended on a high note where the 400-yard free relay team made up of Allison, Maggie, Ashley, and sophomore Nora Magers, took first place with a time of 4:06.49.

“I think I did pretty well last night, I got to try out some events I haven’t swam in a year,” Ashley said. “As a whole, I think the team had fun, and since we did events that we don’t normally do, everyone got a chance to try something new.”

The girls continued to stay energetic as they moved into the individual races. Annie Douma had an outstanding time of 1:22.88 in the 100-yard breast and was able to secure herself the first-place spot. Both Allison Meny and Sydney VanLente had a successful meeting. Allison took second place in the 50-yard free while Sydney came in first only beating her out by a close 0.01 seconds. Allison also had a phenomenal time in the brutal 500-yard free. She was able to take home first place after beating out the second-place finisher by 20 seconds. Lastly, Sydney was able to show her skill in the 100-yard fly as she obtained another first-place finish.

“I think I did very well and my times weren’t far off of my best,” Sydney said. “In the next meet, I hope to continue to get faster and hopefully take the win against Grand Ledge.”

After all of their hard work, the swimmers were able to take a break while they watched the divers. The diving team also had a stellar performance and were all able to help earn the team some points. Freshman Audrey VanSkiver was able to earn herself a personal best score of 90.65. Juniors Lily Zorn, Jia Niemeyer, and Taylor Greemann all placed third through fifth. Finally, junior Rachael Yeager took the second place spot, and had the highest score for the FHC divers, finishing with 190.45. 

“I think our team did great,” Jia said. “We had lots of funny moments like my back dive and Audrey doing the same dive twice. Unfortunately for us, not many people are fond of back dives on this team but it makes great practice for conference.”

Although the team lost, major improvements were made and the team had a ton of fun. Their next meet will be on Thursday, October 6, against Grand Ledge.