Westside girls swim team wins Metro championship

The Westside girls swim team won the Metro Championship at Millard West on Saturday, Feb.11. This season has been full of success for the team this season, now Westside adds a Metro title on top of it. The Warriors beat out the defending champion Omaha Marian 468-423. The team is really making strides coming down to the end of the season. 

The Warriors had four of the top eight finishers in the 200 and 500 meter freestyle, including junior Natalie Harris second place finishes in both. Sophomore Piper Hagen won the 200 meter individual medley and Kate Stevens captured the 50 meter freestyle. Stevens also finished second in the 100 meter freestyle. The Warriors also set a new school record in their second place performance in the 200 meter freestyle relay with Stevens, Harris, Hagen and CeCe Gerard with a time of 1:36.81.

“It’s super special and super fun to be a part of a big team that’s having a lot of success,” Stevens said. “We just have a really good group of girls who really just push each other and it’s fun to be able to try to win those competitions with them. The team aspect of trying to win meets is helpful in each of our performances.”

The Warriors have had lots of individual success that transferred to team success. The team had many personal bests, including the breaststrokers who all had personal bests. Each swimmer doesn’t like to take the credit, but likes to credit each other. They also stress the importance in pushing themselves and teammates to be the best, continue to grow, to be able to break personal bests. 

“The best part of metros was just watching everyone swim and seeing the time drops from everyone,” Hagen said. “Seeing people drop lots of time on races or even out- touching people during races is always so exciting.”

The season has really been a tale of two teams, Marian and Westside, the two have battled it out throughout the season in different meets and invites, the matchup has been pretty even the entire year. With state approaching the Warriors will need to prepare and rest for Marian and the rest of the competition at state. 

“We definitely have a shot at winning or getting runner up,” Stevens said. “So we’re trying to rest and just prepare both physically and mentally for the meet and we’re gonna go in with our best mindset possible and see what happens and have fun with it.”

The Warriors will battle Omaha Marian for the team title again at the State Championships at the Bob Devaney Sports Complex in Lincoln, starting with diving finals on Thursday, Feb. 23. The swimming preliminaries will be on Friday, Feb. 24, followed by the finals on Saturday, Feb. 25.