Girl’s swim season is over, all the girls have worked so hard, at their practices and competitions. Some of the swim team shared their favorite moments. 

Bayley Simmons is a senior. Simmons has been swimming for 2 years and she swims 100-meter freestyle, 100-meter breaststroke, 200 freestyle-relay, and 200-medley relay. Simmons’s favorite stroke is the breaststroke, and she joined the team because of Coach Ann Leonard, and the teammates. Simmons said about the team’s accomplishments, “We accomplished a lot, we were able to get into state consideration for the 200 freestyle relay! I was also happy to see everyone drop time each meet.” The highlights were being around the new Seymour and Marshfield swim team teammates. Simmons’s proudest swim moment was last year when a stop for a new breaststroker opened up and Simmons learned how to swim the breaststroke and got the spot. 

Addison Hoefer is a freshman and this was her first year swimming. She swims 200 medley, 50 freestyle, and 200 relays. Hoefer’s favorite stroke is freestyle because it’s the easiest. She was inspired to join by her friends Molly Henry and Keely Devoto. According to Hoefer her favorite part of swim “would be the girls that I swim with. We grew so much and became what one of our coaches called ‘sisterhood’. The coaches were another bright side of swim and always made practice such a great time! Our team also grew physically. All throughout the season, we kept getting faster times which is amazing.” Hoefer’s biggest accomplishment was her first race, She was doing 100-meter butterfly strokes she struggled with it but won 3rd place. 

Molly Henry is a freshman and this is her 6th year swimming 50 freestyle, 200 freestyle relay, and 400 freestyle relay. Henry’s favorite stroke is freestyle. What inspired her to join the team was that she’s always loved swim. The highlights were that everyone got faster. “My proudest swimming moment was at our last meet. It was the big SWMO meet, which is a big deal. I had gotten basically the same times the whole season in my two individual events, so I really wanted to get faster. Anyways, I finally got a faster time, I got 1st place which was very exciting. It’s fun working so hard at practice, and then getting to see the results,” Henry said. 

Kaylee Meisenheimer is a freshman. This is her first year swimming, Meisenheimer swims the 50 freestyle, 200 freestyle relay, and the 100-meter backstroke. Meisenheimer’s favorite stroke is the backstroke. Meisenheimer was inspired to join by her mother when she suggested joining the swim team to Meisenheimer. The highlight of the season was that everyone got better and became stronger. “My favorite memory is when I won my backstroke heat for the first time. I had taken my last stroke when I hit the wall. I had pulled myself up and looked around. When I saw that no one was there I got really confused and thought that it was a 50 backstroke. When I looked at the second place it dawned on me that I had won my heat. I was in unbelief so I looked at the scoreboard and it said ‘Meisenheimer 1’ then I realized then that I had done it. I got out of the pool and stood by the starting block with my hands on my head with my teammate and kept looking from the scoreboard to the pool. Then I went to my coaches and my parents and they confirmed I had dropped 12 seconds and won my heat.”  

Coach Ann Leonard is a retired health and P.E. teacher who taught for 33 years. This is her 35th year teaching and 2nd year coaching swim. When she was on a swim team, the backstroke was her event. According to Coach Leonard, each of the girls wrote down the goals that they wanted to meet by the end of the swim season, One of the goals was making a relay to state which the boys and girls swim teams came very close to doing. One of the highlights was when “the 200 free relays of Maggie Grace, Molly Henry, Addison Hoefer, and Lexi Schmidt made state consideration time they kept getting faster but didn’t quite make it to the top 32 to make it to state,” Coach Leonard said.