The success of a team is not measured by their victories, but by their heart. The Harriton girls swim team, led by coaches Dennis Hagan and Matt Rowley, lives by this aphorism. While they may not always win, they always try their hardest and improve every meet. Fresh off the diving blocks from their recent defeat of Lower Moreland, the team is ready to make a splash and conquer a few other teams during the rest of the season.

Many Harriton students don’t even wake up until way past six o’clock in the morning. However, many members of the swim team choose to do so, just to make it to optional morning practices taking place from 5:30 AM to 7:00 AM on Tuesdays and Thursdays. These dedicated swimmers start their morning with a dive into the icy cold Lower Merion pool, beginning a workout full of grueling physical and technical work, while most of us sleep in our warm, comfortable beds. After completing this strenuous practice, the swimmers must pack off and take a bus to
Harriton and complete the school day, only to return to Lower Merion to execute another arduous workout. These practices are no fun pool playtime—they involve thirty minutes of dryland (running, weightlifting, etc.) and a series of swimming sprints at different intensities and strokes.

While they may be intense and excruciating, the girls’ swim team’s workouts are certainly paying off. All of the swimmers are improving their times greatly, and many are on the brink of qualifying for districts. Senior Nicole Sutliff is close to qualifying for the girl’s fifty yard freestyle. Sophomore Julia Carp says she is working
hard to qualify for the one hundred yard backstroke. “The morning practices have really helped me,” says Carp, after a particularly difficult early morning workout. “I don’t know how likely it is, but I’m working very hard to bring down my time and hopefully make it to districts.” Another sophomore, Erin Hayden, is key to the team’s success. She consistently scores points at meets in the five hundred yard freestyle, twenty laps of sheer agony and the longest event available to high school swimmers. Other notable sophomores include Devon Kelly, who has been consistently improving her time in the one hundred yard butterfly and Emma Butler, constantly dominating in the one hundred yard breaststroke.

Junior Moira Lavelle has been making splashes this season. She has already qualified for the fifty yard freestyle and the two hundred yard individual medley, a challenging race requiring swimmers to swim fifty yards of all four strokes— butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke, and freestyle. Because she is a junior Moira has this year and the next to try and place at districts.

The end of the season will be especially bittersweet this year for the swim team. Last season, the team didn’t graduate any seniors, but this year they will be saying goodbye to captains Helen Gaynor, Kate Galbo, Katherine Kanehann, and Nicole Sutliff. Most of these seniors have been swimming for Harriton since they were freshmen. “I might not always have enjoyed working out so much, but I’m going to miss the people and the good times,” says Kate Galbo, already nostalgic.

Harriton girls swimming has two big meets left—Central League Champs on February 18th and Districts on March 4th and 5th. They may not be planning on winning these meets, but the team is going to show up and show the world how hard they’ve worked all season. Morning practices and intensive training is going to show, and Harriton may even win a few medals.