On January 24, the Fossil Ridge Girls Swim Team finished their regular season with a big victory against the other Fort Collins teams and an emotional goodbye to their seniors.

The Sabercats honored a total of six seniors, including Lucy Bell, Bella Cruz, Renee Gillilan, Abby Grell, Tali Hendrickson, and Renee Trombley. Despite all ending up in the same place, these athletes all had very different paths onto the team. Abby Grell had only been swimming for one year before joining the team as a freshman, which was the least among the six seniors this year.

“I was looking for a good atmosphere, new friends, and a team bonding experience,” Abby Grell said.

It was quite a different experience for Bella Cruz, as she had already been swimming for six years before high school. 

“My dad was a swimmer…he put me into [swimming lessons], and I liked it,” Cruz

However, Cruz has only been a member of the Fossil team for two years and was the only senior who wasn’t on the team all four years. She had a good excuse, as she was living in Utah for the first two years of high school.

The team was not fazed by their unique and distinct backgrounds, as they have been extremely successful, including a fourth place finish at state last year. Perhaps more important, were the great memories and friendship these athletes found through their team.

“[The best part] I would say is like team bus rides, team dinners…moments when there was a lot of energy and the girls were bonded together,” Renee Trombley said. 

Tali Hendrickson’s favorite memory happened completely by accident, when she was asked to compete in the 200 Yard Free Relay at last year’s state championship, mere minutes before the race began.

“I kind of got scratched in and it was all sorts of craziness. And I only got a few laps of warm up and then had to go, but it was so much fun,” Hendrickson said.

For two of these seniors, this is far from where their swimming career ends. Renee Gillilan and Lucy Bell. The duo combined for four first place finishes in events at last year’s state championship, winning the 200 Yard Medley Relay together. Bell also won the 400 Yard Free Relay, 100 Yard Free, and 100 Yard Fly. During the city meet they won a total of five events for Fossil. Next year Gillilan will be attending Notre Dame while Bell will enroll at Stanford, two of the top swim universities in the entire country.

Before moving on, both athletes had time to reflect on their time as a part of the Fossil Swim Team.

“I’m honestly really happy. It’s kind of sad to be like ‘oh it’s over now’, but now I’m just really happy,” Gillilan said.

“It’s kind of crazy being here…experiencing all my older friends leaving every single year for the past three years. And now that it’s my turn it’s kind of surreal, thinking about when I was in freshman year and thinking it would be so long until I got here. And now that I’m actually there it’s kind of crazy to me,” Bell said.

Despite the emotional sendoff for the seniors, the season is not over for the Sabercats. Fossil will begin their postseason journey at the Conference Tournament in Thornton on February 4-5.