By Paul Evers, sports editor
The girls’ swimming and diving team sent three girls to state on Friday, Nov. 18. Senior Gracie Dix competed in the 50 yard freestyle and placed 35th while senior Meghan Schmit and sophomore Madison Malone placed 33rd and 46th respectively.
While no competitor made it past the preliminary round on Friday, the team was still successful. Specifically, Schmit completed her season goal of making it to state and Dix completed her goal of not placing last at state.
Coming into the state meet, Dix was the last qualifier from the sectional meet.      
“After I raced, I saw that I didn’t make the [qualifying] time, so I was pretty bummed,” Dix said. “I was getting out of the water and I tried not to look back at my team because I was too upset.”
Dix said that she didn’t hear her team cheering and didn’t realized what had occurred until a couple minutes later.
“I finally looked up at the board and saw that I actually got first and then I looked back at the team and everyone was going crazy,” Dix said. “Just making it was insane, the whole time not even knowing [I made it] and then being able to see [that I did] and get excited about it was awesome.”
In Dix’s effort to avoid last place, she ended up placing 15 spots higher than that.
“I couldn’t of asked for anything better,” Dix said. “If I had to picture what it would be like to leave Prospect and Prospect swimming, that would be the meet.”
On the diving side of the state meet, Schmit was the other senior for Prospect. Schmit only began diving last year, and she gives credit to girls’ diving coach Antonino Bondi to getting her to the level she is at.
When Schmit finally got into the state competition, she was a little surprised at what the atmosphere was like.
“Two years ago, my brother (Prospect alumnus Stephen Schmit) went [to state] so I kind of knew what [the atmosphere] was like. It was so different than a regular invite or a regular meet,” Meghan said. “I didn’t really understand [how different it is] until I was on the deck and surrounded by all those people and you look up and there are so many more people cheering you on than anywhere else.”
Meghan won’t be continuing to dive in college, so the state meet was her last time performing a competitive dive.
“It was kind of a last hurrah and a reward for everything that I’ve put in,” Meghan said. “My whole family came and [seeing] how proud Bondi was, everything finally paid off.”