Swimming sneaks a peak at competition before districts
The Redhawks look to dive deep in a 6A competition over the weekend. The team usually competes against other 5A schools. However, Saturdays meet will put the athlete’s skills to the test.
Redhawks sit in their designated section alongside schools from across the area at Bruce Eubanks Natatorium Friday and Saturday
Home to the Frisco ISD swim teams, Bruce Eubanks Natatorium hosted the North Texas 5A TISCA Invite Friday and Saturday.
Competing in the North Texas 5A TISCA Invite, girls’ finished in 3rd and boys’ in 15th out of 25 teams.
The swim team dove into their invitational against Panther Creek on Thursday, and some swimmers qualified for the TISCA invitational. “I’m so proud of myself and how far I’ve come,” senior Maria Oushalkas said.
The swim team lifted themselves out of the water at the North Texas 5A TISCA Invite on Friday and Saturday with the girls’ claimed 5th, the boys’ finishing 15th out of 25 teams, and several school records broke.
“The Redhawks fought hard at TISCA championships this past weekend,” swim coach Chesley Kilgore said via email. “The girls’ team placed 5th overall against schools from all over the state, and they placed first in the FISD rankings at this swim meet. I’m very pleased with how the boys team stepped up and improved their times as well. It was a successful meet for the varsity swim program, and I’m excited to see how the team does at district championships in January.”
Placing 5th in the Girls’ 200 Medley Relay, junior Rachel Easton, senior Hannah Nguyen, freshman Maria Oushalkas, and junior Mallory Showalter were able to cut their time down by more than four seconds since the preliminaries.
“We’re just really excited especially since our relay got to get a record,” Easton said. “It just gave us a lot more motivation to try to get other records and it just kind of helped us know that we can do it and that we will be able to do it.
Individually, junior Mallory Showalter broke the school records in the 100 backstroke finishing in 58.01 seconds and broke her individual record during the 50 freestyle at 24.51 seconds.
“I really wanted to, that was my goal,” Showalter said. “It’s definitely a good motivation to keep working hard and at districts and regionals to to keep trying my best to get a better time. I dropped four seconds in my backstroke so that was really good and then I dropped a 10th of a second on my 50 yard freestyle.”
Preparing for districts, the meet served as a sneak peak to the competition they will face on Jan. 16-17.
“I think we’re set up pretty well for districts because this meet was kind of like a pre-state region meet because it was all of North Texas,” Nguyen said. “So I think we are doing pretty well overall.”
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