On Tuesday, Sept. 27, the MTHS Women’s Swim Team faced off against Shorewood High School in the fifth match of the season.

The final score of 138-29 doesn’t show the hard work from the team nor the pride from Swim Coach Amber Armstrong has for those who competed. Armstrong said that Shorewood is a really good team and winning the meet was not the most important goal she had coming in.

With the smell of chlorine suffocating the air, the red capped-girls from MTHS began the meet with warm ups, practicing dives and butterflies until their coach advised them not to “overwork” themselves before the actual competition.

At 3:02 p.m. the relays began. Freshmen Carly Stave, Emma Van Hooser and Sally Benedict swam together in together in the 200 Yard Medley Relay, in the relay A team and finished with a time of 2:21.87. Unfortunately, the relay B team was disqualified due to a “stroke infraction” from an MTHS swimmer.

“I think I did good, but it was tough,” Van Hooser said. “[During practices], I went over butterflies and backstrokes -my weaker strokes.”

Between events, one could see girls stuffing their hair into swim caps and sharing snacks from the sidelines while giving both critiques and compliments on how each other competed.

Armstrong said she was proud of her team, mostly because some of the girls had never swam in events before.

Junior Quynh Lai swam in the 50 Yard Freestyle and finished with a time of 45.65, cutting two seconds from her last record, she said.

“Which is a lot in swim terms!” Lai said.

While MTHS did not win the meet, Armstrong was not disappointed in the slightest. She believes her team swam well time-wise and said “things are going really well for Terrace.”

Due to the other coaches working during the day, she’s been the only one at meets and practices lately.

“This is the most organized I’ve come to a meet, I think,” she joked. But Armstrong is planning to hire another assistant coach to distribute the responsibilities of coaching.