Sarah Helen Shepherd/The Omniscient
Two years ago, the Northwood swim team was an unorganized handful of people with no official coaching or place to practice, who occasionally came together for meets. This Saturday, six members of the swim team will compete in the state NCHSAA championships, as the culmination of a season in which the team already attained second place in the Big Eight conference meet and fourth place in the 3A Eastern regional meet.
On Saturday, the six female swimmers who qualified, Sarah Helen Shepherd, Hannah Gail Shepherd, Katelyn Walsh, Madeline Posse, Mary Wardrop and Amanda Montgomery, will participate in all three relays at the state championships. Additionally, Sarah Helen Shepherd will swim the 200 meter individual medley and the 100 meter backstroke, and Madeline Posse will swim the 50 meter freestyle and 500 meter freestyle.
Over the past two years, the swim program has grown under the leadership of physical education teacher and coach Lyn Smith, who also coaches for East Chapel Hill High School.
“When I first started… we didn’t have a place to practice, we didn’t have a coach and you had to pay to practice someplace and pay someone to coach you,” senior Hannah Gail Shepherd said. “It was almost like you were swimming with a club and you’d just all come together for a meet, and so there wasn’t any team bonding. At the end of sophomore year… Mrs. Smith took over the team, made it an actual team and got us a place to practice. Mrs. Smith actually saved the swim program.”
Sophomore Sam Earnshaw was one of the first swimmers to be part of the reformed team.
“The year before I came, it was pretty unorganized, and then we got a new coach,” Earnshaw said. “Now we have several year-round swimmers and the past couple years have been getting better and better as we get more people.”
Last year’s team decided to tackle one aspect that had been holding them back: a low number of swimmers to score in competitions.
“We ended a fantastic season, and we all decided… each returning swimmer was going to bring two new swimmers with them,” Shepherd said. “And we had all these new swimmers come in. But they all improved so fast, and it’s just so awesome to see people who could barely swim making it at regionals.”
The swim team’s growing size and leadership laid the foundation for what most swimmers believe to be the key element to their success: a tight-knit team bond.
“Because we’re a team, and it’s a very close team, everyone pulls for each other,” Smith said. “We were even awarded the sportsmanship award for the entire conference, which says that not only do we see that we’re a close-bonded team, others see it with the way that we interact…. And when you have a bond I think you want to do better, to push yourselves to be better for the rest of the team.”
While the small number of swimmers competing limits the number of points they will be able to score, the team is confident that they will perform well for the sake of their teammates.
“You can always hear them cheering for you on the sidelines… and it makes you remember that people are there for you,” Shepherd said. “I think we’re all very excited and I think that’s going to translate to our success.”
“We beat Orange this year and I don’t think we’ve ever beaten them before,” senior Mary Wardrop said. “It’s really cool that a small school can beat big schools…. I want our school to be better known, and people to be like, ‘Oh that’s Northwood, they have a really good swim team.’ I’m excited… it’s so intense, there are so many people and it’s going to be awesome.”
– By Colin Battis
