As the gun went off, Pioneer’s Sarah Carne and Skyline’s Evie Langrock dove into Saline High School’s pool with the crowd screaming and chanting their names and stomping on the pool deck. Swimming alone in the pool, they fought against each other to win the first swim-off competition, with Carne coming out victorious. It was a moment many, including CHS freshman Kira Tribou, counted as their favorite of the two-day South Eastern Conference (SEC) Championships competition.
“I think the end of the swim off [was my favorite part],” Tribou said. “When one of the Pioneer swimmers got the same time as someone else, and everyone was cheering for her, and then she won it was awesome.”
On Nov.8-9, six CHS students competed in swimming and diving at the SEC Championships for three different schools.
Sophia Alcumbrack-McDaniel, a CHS junior, competed on Huron High School’s team at the swim and dive SEC Championships. She swims for fun in the summer and enjoys the traditions and camaraderie between schools during the high school season.
Huron teammates are paired up each season and dubbed as each others’ “swim sisters”. At every home meet, each sister gets the other a gift. Gifts vary from cards and candy to stuffed animals and jewelry.
“I think that’s a super fun tradition because you get to specifically bond with someone on the team that you wouldn’t really have interacted with much otherwise,” Alcumbrack-McDaniel said.
During the regular season, Huron defeated Saline High School, a close competitor for the River Rats. Alcumbrack-McDaniel counts a diving break pep talk as the motivation the team needed to secure the win. The River Rats then went on to beat Saline at SECs as well, placing third overall.
“Beating them at finals was so exciting for us because we’re so close with Saline,” Alcumbrack-McDaniel said. “We were tied for third and fourth for the whole meet and I’m really proud of my team for stepping it up and winning.”
As her senior season approaches, Alcumbrack-McDaniel wants to soak up all the memories from her time on the team and have fun. She hopes to become captain next year but is more excited about enjoying her last swim season and cherishing everything one last time.
CHS Junior Sylvia Biermann is a diver at Skyline High School. competed in preliminaries and finals at SECs. During the first day, The competition’s 29 divers competed their first eight dives with the top 17 completing their last three dives on the second day. Scores for diving are determined by the degree of difficulty of each dive and then multiplied by the judge’s scores. At the end of the competition, each place was awarded points that would contribute to their team’s overall score.
Biermann has been diving since she was 11. Her favorite dive is the inward one-and-a-half and her hardest is a front double. She hopes to compete at states in high school for the upcoming seasons. During club season she dives for Wolverine and hopes to compete at Zones for springboard and Nationals for tower, in the spring.
While she enjoys her club season, the priority of community within Skyline’s program is one of Biermann’s favorite aspects of the school season. As with many school teams, the team has many unique traditions including the team’s senior night.
“Senior night’s fun. The juniors create a dance and make posters,” Biermann said.
On Nov.14 Biermann competed at Regionals and finished ninth to secure a spot in the Division II State Championship Meet on Nov.22.
While all the athletes competed hard, the defending state champion Pioneer High School ultimately claimed victory, finishing 269 points ahead of second-place Skyline.
Pioneer hopes to defend their title at the Division I State Championship on Nov. 22.
