The beginning to the end of a phenomenal swim season that will be forever remembered in the history of Timber Creek took place at the Pete Ragus Aquatic Center in Lubbock Feb. 1-3.
“It was a great time, the team did a ton of team bonding,” freshman Mia Cicerelli said.
Timber Creek and Keller Central shared a charter bus to and from Lubbock and also stayed in the same hotel, the experience strengthening the tie between both high school swim teams.
“We would play cards and board games all together, even just being on the bus had us bonding,” Cicerelli said.
Swimmers enjoyed playing video games such as Mario Cart, Super Smash Bros. and other board and card games in the hotel common room during any free time. The lightheartedness made swimmers relaxed and unstressed about the big meet to come, their mind fresh and worry free before the meet. By the time it was time to leave for the pool, everyone was pumped and ready to swim a great race.
“We played a lot of games which wasn’t really meant to prepare us for our races, but it made us have fun together and enjoy each other’s company,” junior Karson Gopffarth said. “ We studied together and made sure to have fun any chance we got, which really helped how we raced.”
The first day of Region is always preliminaries which is where athletes test out the waters to see how fast the other competitors are and how fast they need to be. The top 16 athletes from prelims in each event will move on to finals the next day and then from there, the top two swimmers from each event will move on to State. Additionally, the next top eight fastest times in all the regions will also get drafted up to State.
Timber Creek has historically always made it back for finals with this year being no different, however this season the swim team had a swimmer make it to state in the 500 free, freshman Maci Finder.
“I don’t just sit around and wait for something to happen. I make these things happen,” said Finder. “For the past few months I’ve been getting up at 4:30 a.m. in order to go to the pool to train my hardest. I’m just really happy my hard work is paying off.”
The results from finals can be found below for all of Timber Creek swims.
- Girls 200 Yard Medley Relay- 10th place
- Boys 200 Yard Medley Relay- 11th place
- Girls 200 Yard Freestyle – Maci Finder (9) 3rd place
- Girls 200 Yard IM – Serena Shabout (10) 16th place
- Girls 50 Yard Freestyle – Mia Cicerelli (9) 4th place
- Boys 50 Yard Freestyle – Karson Gopffarth (11) 14th place
- Girls 100 Yard Butterfly – Molly Donaldson (9) 15th place
- Girls 100 Yard Freestyle – Mia Cicerelli (9) 3rd place
- Boys 100 Yard Freestyle – Karson Gopffarth (11) 15th place
- Girls 500 Yard Freestyle – Maci Finder (9) 2nd place and Josie Gunn (12) 15th place
- Girls 200 Yard Freestyle Relay- 11th place
- Boys 200 Yard Freestyle Relay- 7th place
- Boys 100 Yard Backstroke – Colin Warwick (11) 14th place
- Girls 100 Yard Breaststroke – Serena Shabout (10) 12th place and Josie Gunn (12) 14th place
- Girls 400 Yard Freestyle Relay- 9th place
- Boys 400 Yard Freestyle Relay- 10th place