2023 Women’s Swim Team

Cora Iarossi & Madalyn Hanks, Writter

The women’s swim team has now started its season at Washburn Rural High School. Maddie O’Brien has been swimming for about five years. She wanted to swim so she could stay in shape for the other sports she plays.

She loves meeting new teammates and connecting with them. She also likes how the team feels like a family. Maddie doesn’t like the hard practices they have to do just because it’s really exhausting. There are many different strokes in swimming but Maddie’s favorite one is the freestyle, which is swimming in a horizontal position with the body facing down.

The people who pushed her the most were Coach Burdick, Taylor and Coach Howard, which is one of her club coaches. Maddie would be willing to go to college to swim if she were to get a scholarship for it. She does club swimming in the summer to give her extra practice, which she likes. Her favorite professional swimmer is Ms. Ledeci. What she likes to do before her meets is listen to music while she puts her gear on and gets focused .

Victoria Shen is also a swimmer here at Washburn Rural. She is a senior and has been swimming all throughout high school. Her friends inspired her to start swimming because they did and they wanted her to try something new.

Victoria’s favorite part of being on the swim team is the bond she has with her teammates. Her least favorite part about swimming is being put in the events that she doesn’t like. The backstroke is Victoria’s favorite type of stroke.

She says that her coaches, coach Taylor and Makenna Pritchard pushed her the hardest. She does not plan on going to college to swim. She went to a pre-season conditioning program this year with the TSA. Katie Ledecky is her favorite celebrity swimmer. Victoria’s pre-game ritual is blasting Kendrick Lamar and eating Sour Patch Kids. 

Raya Eilert is one of the newer swimmers. She has been swimming competitively for about two years. She was inspired to swim because of her brother who swam while he was in high school. She has fun being on the bus rides and having the team dinners the day before the meets.She doesn’t like the cramps she gets every so often from swimming.

One of her favorite strokes is the breaststroke and the medley relay. She doesn’t plan on swimming in college because she has played other sports longer and might go for one of those. TSA Howard is who pushed her the most because she swam club for them. Raya loves Micheal Phelps, who is the most successful and most decorated Olympian of all time with a total of 28 medals.