Swim Team Takes Home Top Titles in District Opener
Sofia Martinez ’18 takes a stroke in freestyle.
Victoria Novoa ’21 races towards the finish while doing butterfly stroke.
Coaches Matt McBrearty and Tamra Franklin watch the students compete.
Abby King ’18 and Brian Lee ’19 watch and cheer on their teammates.
Eric Wang ’19 chases down his competitor while doing the breaststroke.
Sam Caro ’18 takes a breath while swimming the 50 meters.
Sofia Martinez ’18 dives into the pool to start the race.
Kyle Varozza ’18 dives off finish the last leg of his relay.
Staley Varozza ’18 dives into the pool to begin the race.
Eli Blinchevsky ’19 comes up for a breath while swimming breaststroke.
Ian Bradford ’18 dives off the block to start his race.
The swim team participated in the Round Rock District Opener on Sept. 21 at Round Rock High School. Four other schools, including Cedar Ridge, Stony Point, Hendrickson, and Round Rock also took part in the meet. This was the first official meet of the season, and Westwood took home the win with the boys’ first place trophy and girls’ second place trophy.
“At this meet we saw how good everyone is and how good the other teams were,” Emily Ngo ‘19 said. “Round Rock girls are looking strong as ever, but I think we have a good chance.”
Westwood has won the District Opener meets in the past years, but this year was especially impressive as Coach Matt McBrearty put many swimmers in their off events because the team was still training to be in their best shape by the end of their season. All of the freshmen are expected to swim different events at each meet in order to get their official high school times. Many of the freshmen swam events they’ve never swam before, or just not as often, since they’ve always swam the events in their favor or the ones they train year-round for.
“I was worried about the meet at first,” Nidhi Hegde ‘21 said. “But then when we got there I was having so much fun and the thrill of competing just made me forget.”
Since this was the first meet of the season, Coach McBrearty mentioned to the team that their times didn’t matter at this meet, only that everyone put their best effort in. Unexpectedly, many swimmers swam their best times ever and other swimmers placed among the top places in the events they never expected to place in.
“Typically, the first meets of the season aren’t their best swims, so I was surprised and happy to see people holding onto their times, and see some people even improved,” Abbey Truong ‘19 said. “I’m really pleased with my performance because I’m really close to reaching my goals for this season”
The swim team will be collaborating with McNeil and Anderson next Saturday, Sept. 30, in a charity meet to raise money for a coach, Daniel Alvarez, who was diagnosed with Leukemia. Coach Daniel coached many Westwood swimmers for club swimming at Waterloo, where Westwood, McNeil, and Anderson train every morning.
Sup! I’m new to Student Press this year as a reporter and I’m pumped. When I’m not running around taking pictures for student press, I’m at swim...
Hi, I'm Nicole Dhar and I am a photographer for news and yearbook. Although this is my first year at Westwood and in Student Press, I've been taking pictures...
