Last Friday, the swim team traveled to the University of Texas at Austin for the district meet. Overall, the boys placed fifth, and the girls placed fourth. From this meet, Bryce Flynn, Trinity Hoang, Ethan Brissenden, Lexie Brissenden, Kelson Flynn, Paula Warren, Salem Nassar, Abigail Utama, Alex Hoang, Keegan Allen, Rance Blancaflor, and Allison Pimm all advanced to regionals. Freshman Olivia Tomberlin and junior Cameron Zapalac were members of the swim team that competed at the meet.

“For me personally, I did good in my events,” Zapalac said. “I do a lot of events, but my favorites are the boys 50 free and 100 fly. I dropped time in both of them. I’m very proud of how I did.” 

The whole team has practiced every day throughout the year to prepare for their meets.

“We’re not allowed to take days off or anything, and it’s tapering or getting easier, so we can work on building stuff and not being sore,” Tomberlin said.

Not only have the swimmers improved their individual skills at these frequent practices, but they’ve improved as a team overall.

“As a team, we’re pretty strong working together,” Zapalac said. “If there’s anything I could say that we could improve upon, it’s efficiency, how we move from place to place. Overall, it’s not that big of a problem, and we do improve on it.”

These meets inspire both Zapalac and Tomberlin to push themselves to do the best that they can.

“I want to push myself to get the times I want and get to the meets that are harder,” Tomberlin said. “I would be very proud of myself for getting the time that I wanted. [I’ve worked on] my breathing and making sure I’m doing stuff correctly and not throwing up.”

Zapalac has seen a lot of growth throughout his years of swimming, as he joined a team when he was only 8.

“I first started swimming because my sister started swimming,” he said. “My parents had a lot of friends who had kids on the swim team, so I was kind of introduced to it that way. I’ve known about Vista Ridge and their swim program ever since I was in early middle school. My sister was also on the team, so that was a big motivation for me to join the team.”

Tomberlin and Zapalac agree that competing and being a part of the team is a great experience.

“It’s a good thing to do to stay active and make friends, so you’re not sitting and doing nothing,” Tomberlin said. “You get a group of friends, and then they become your family throughout the school year. It’s a fun thing you can do, and I like swimming.”