By Jack Ankony, executive sports editor
At the first ever swim meet in Prospect’s new Natatorium on Aug. 31, the girls’ swimming team beat the Palatine Pirates in convincing fashion.
“[Being the first meet at Prospect] was pretty historic,” Head swimming coach Alfonso Lopez said. “But I think they were so focused on the goal of trying to win the meet that they didn’t let the new atmosphere affect them too much.”
Though it was the first true home meet for Prospect, Lopez explains that the girls took a lot of pride in playing in front of their fans.
“They definitely got up to swim,” Lopez said. “They got excited; the girls really felt good about competing today,” Lopez said.
Race victories for the Knights included the Knights sweeping the 50 yard freestyle from seniors Gracie Dix-26.04, Janae Dawson-27.38 and sophomore Katie Mueller-27.51.
Seniors Megan Pfeiffer, Emma Colehour, Janae Dawson and Gracie Dix swam 2:01.00 which was fast enough to place first in the 200 yard medley relay. Following up in second and third place in the 200 yard medley relay were the teams of juniors Katie Kenny, Mary Dembrowski, Kaitlin Sattley and senior Kate Colehour with a time of 2:05.72, and sophomores Kailee Costello, and Emily Tuczak, freshman Caitlin Broz and junior Brenna Lukoski with a time of 2:16.11.
Lopez believes that the team’s overall depth in each event was key to their victory.
“With depth comes a lot of points,” Lopez said. “Even if you lose a race, you can still place 2-3-4 and be successful.”
The Knights will use this strong performance to build off of in preparation for their next meet against Conant.
“This was a nice confidence builder even though it was a crossover meet,” Lopez said. “But we came out of this meet knowing that we are a really deep team so there will be competition for each spot, and that’s a really good thing for our team.”