The Toll Gate Girls Swim Team in late January had a big win against their cross town rival, Pilgrim High School. Toll Gate has not won a dual meet against Pilgrim in several years, making this meet even more historic.
On January 24th, the dual meet began with a win in the 200 Medley Relay for Toll Gate, which consisted of senior Katelyn Watson in backstroke, senior Samantha Barr in fly, junior Samanantha Lin in breaststroke and finally junior Tania Cruz-Urban in freestyle. Pilgrim’s relay team finished second, while Toll Gate’s B Relay placed third. Watson later placed first in the 200 Freestyle event, with junior Tate Payne taking second place. In a close race for the 200 Individual Medley, Lin, (who was getting over being sick), would win in a close race, while Julianna Kavanaugh from Pilgrim took second.
In the 50 freestyle, Cruz-Urban would place first, with Pilgrim’s Hanna Fitzpatrick and Becca Besette taking second and third. Samantha Barr and junior Avi Garcia would go on to take first and second in the 100 fly, and Barr would then take first in the 100 freestyle directly afterwards. Payne would also win the 500 freestyle. Pilgrim’s Kavanaugh would win the 100 back and their 200 Freestyle Relay team would win their event. Lin takes first place in the 100 Breast, while Pilgrim’s girls take second and third. This would be enough to pull Toll Gate into the lead, but the last relay could give the meet to either team. Toll Gate’s girls win the 400 Free Relay, consisting of Cruz-Urban, Payne, Watson and Lin, with Pilgrims two other relay teams coming in second and third. Final score: 53 Toll Gate, 39 Pilgrim.
This big win for the girls was all due to weeks of hard work and improvement, and an experienced new coach to make it all happen. Before the swim season began, the Toll Gate Swim Team was in search of a coach, a role eventually taken on by Gina Hand. She comments that her first year experience coaching the Toll Gate swim team was a positive one: “while we only had 10 swimmers, the girls were committed and consistently came to practices and worked hard. Each swimmer got stronger as the season progressed and were put in more challenging events at meets… Even though it was a small team, we were able to fill all the events at every dual meet. This made us more competitive and allowed us to end the season with a 4-4 record. I am very proud of this record and for the girls’ willingness to continually challenge themselves.”
After an amazing season, the team looks forward to next year’s swim season and hopes for more recruits then!
