The Fossil Ridge High School girls are back at it again defending their title as state champions. It looks as though they will be able to hold their winning streak again but only time will tell as the end of the season approaches.
The Fossil Ridge girls’ swim team is made up of a variety of swimmers who come from different backgrounds. Many of the swimmers don’t go to all of the Fossil Ridge practices but they go to club practices instead. These swimmers swim for their club team as well as the high school. This is a huge challenge that the team has been able to overcome and somehow manage to swim together as more than just a team.
So far, the girls have remained undefeated in league dual meets. That is quite impressive considering all the hardships they have had to overcome this year in challenging opponents.
One such swimmer has had to overcome an impressive amount of adversity this year to reach her goal of staying in the water. Fossil Ridge junior Skylar Larson has spent the whole winter break this year out of the water. Her parents planned a vacation a while back during the break and although she wanted to stay and keep swimming with her team, she was forced to go. “I took the whole Christmas break off from swimming and that has pretty much killed my season,” Skylar said.
Even with this long break, Skylar has been able to find it in her to stay in the water and freestyle her way to the finish. As an individual she said she is most proud of her ability to stay in the game and make it through her season. “It’s been a lot of hard work and that’s what makes it even better,” Skylar said.
Although she admittedly may not be one of the fastest swimmers on the team, Skylar believes that it is most important that she is still swimming with the girls and really showing what it means to be a part of a team. “Even though we don’t practice together, we’ve still figured out how to work together collectively as a group.”
It’s the individual effort by swimmers like Skylar that prove to bring the team together with success. The state meet for girls’ swimming will be held Feb. 14-15 at VMAC.
