Instead of heading off for Thanksgiving break on Nov. 21-22, the swim team earned huge success when the boys got fourth place and the girls won first place at the Coastal Bend TISCA Meet in Corpus Christi.

“They represented us all so well inside and outside of the pool,” swim coach Johnny Foss said. “I cannot express how proud I am of them all.”

The large amount of talent present in the swim team allowed the team to stand out at the meet. Against 51 teams and 800 swimmers, the girls won first place with 208 more points than the team in second place.

“I think our swim team is so strong because we have a great coach,” freshman Zach Matula said. “And we have amazing team captains to make us pumped.”

With this meet being the last of the semester, the swimmers and the coaches felt the team was prepared.

“I felt our kids were ready to compete. All that was needed was a belief in themselves, and they needed to be ready to compete for their teammates and school,” Foss said. “It all paid off with a total team performance.”

Other than working hard in the pool, members of the swim team enjoy their time together.

“When we aren’t swimming at meets, we normally just eat lots of food, sleep, or listen to music,” Matula said. “We have fun and just hang out with each other.”

This free time spent together by the teammates has developed special relationships within the team.

“We have a really good sense of family,” senior Guan Ma said. “We are more like siblings than we are a team, and we are always there for each other when others aren’t.”

Although the semester is coming to an end, the swim season is not yet over, and the team already has goals set for the coming semester.

“Our goals right now are to work as hard as possible for the next two months,” Foss said. “We hope to compete successfully in our championship season which begins at the end of January.”