By Jeralynn Borges, staff writers
Indian Trail High School and Academy is known as one of the largest schools in the state of Wisconsin and home to many sports teams that compete around Southern Wisconsin, but a commonly overlooked team is the girl’s Swim & Dive who work hard to represent the Hawks.
These girls are training in the morning as early as 4 a.m. in the YMCA pool and come back after school to practice again for upcoming meets. To regular teens who have no experience on sports teams this probably seems unreasonable, but the girls are constantly full of pep and proudly cheer each other on throughout ev- ery relay, race, and practice. Swim- ming is a natural thing everyone does in their lifetime for summer fun, but when swimming competitively it’s a whole new story as most swimmers show an improved posture, flexibility, strength, and balance. The girls have made life changes in their confidence, their new friendships, and a self lessons to always push themselves harder and never give up. Some studies even show that competitive swimming can ease the pain of Osteoarthritis as swimming gives you that weightless feeling and therefore relieves pressure from joints.
The current captains, Megan Jaz- dzewski, Maren Hoferitza-Palermo, and Tara Smith say they have the im- portant job of just being there every day and making sure everyone is in a good mood and cheering them up. To- gether without a doubt the swimmers and divers have developed a family bond together where they always are determinedtoworkhardeachdayand keep a positive attitude. To help keep this mood flowing, the coaches Heidi Romero and Kelly Kolmos ensure that the team is constantly pushed to their limits and beyond.
On Sept. 16, the Indian Trail Hawk’s team defeated cross town rivals the Tremper Trojans with much anticipation. After the meet, the girls were exhilarated to the point of speechlessness,
“Oh my god, it was amazing! I have been waiting three years for this result,” said Smith. The future goals for the girls include trying to take one relay and one individual for state and making conference. The team hopes Indian Trail supports them fully.
(At press time, the girls varsity swim team record was an impressive 4-0.)