Hundreds of hours in the pool. Thirty-six meets. Eight state races. For seniors Sarah Calderon and Amanda Alspaugh, all their numbers come down to one final season. The teammates are the swim team’s only four-year veterans.
“I’m proud of myself for sticking with swimming for so long,” Alspaugh said. “It’s a very rewarding sport and to hear your name on the announcements or to stand on the first place podium makes all the hard work worth it.”
All the hard work that Alspaugh and Calderon put into swim is thanks to their older siblings. Alspaugh’s older sister and Calderon’s big brother inspired them to jump into the pool in the first place.
“I joined swimming when I was five years old. Like most younger siblings, I saw my sister do it and naturally wanted to be like her,” Alspaugh said. “After swimming through elementary and middle school, it only seemed natural to continue on and swim in high school.”
From the start of their freshman year both girls have improved their times as well as their strokes. Alspaugh swims the 500 freestyle and the 200 IM while Calderon swims the 200 and 500 freestyle as well as the 100 back and breaststrokes. “I remember being at district my freshman year and swimming a 100 freestyle in a minutes and eight seconds was a stretch and a goal unfortunately I didn’t meet at the time,” Calderon said. “Now I swim a 100 free in a minute and my new goal is 58 seconds.”
Everything they have learned throughout all four years, from the stroke technique to the friends they have made, all comes down to their final year of high school swim.
“I’m really sad this is my last year because my best memories of high school are with the swim team,” Calderon said. “In fact, swim is probably all I’m going to remember about high school and the only reason I’m going to go to a high school reunion is going to be to see old swim buddies.”
Even though it’s their last year they aren’t slacking off. Both girls along with the whole team, are still working hard to improve their times. The team has competed in six meets, including the AISD Swim Classic Nov. 1 , the Aggieland Invite Nov. 16 and TISCA in San Antonio Dec. 6-7.
“The team did awesome, we had a bunch of people make it into finals and I’m very proud of them for that,” Alspaugh said. “We may be small but we are slowly making a name for ourselves.”
The team’s next meet is district, Jan. 24-25 in Killeen.
