By Catherine Montoya-Quiroz, staff writer
The Galileo’s swimming team made history this season as the girls JV won the title for the very first time in school history, sharing the honor with Washington High School. Meanwhile the boys JV team had a strong showing being able to secure 4th place. What made the team’s success even more sweet though, was the fact that the season was full of ups & downs.
The last time the swim team competed, in 2018, before the pandemic, they had reliable and experienced coaches. This year however, those coaches had different responsibilities, which made them unable to continue coaching the team. This led to Coach Sheila Burke to come back as the coach of the swim team, as there was no one else able to coach the team.
Even with Coach Burke, some team members ended up taking on a lot of duties themselves. Team captain Ainsley M and the team managers (Kaitlyn T and Amberlynn T) were largely responsible for helping the team do warm ups and help them practice. Overall, the seniors felt a sense of obligation towards the younger student athletes, which ultimately led to them taking charge of the team.
Also, the team was working with a small budget, which made it impossible for them to receive matching swimming gear. Ainsley M stated, “We [the team] never received team swim suits or caps. It hurt to see all of the other schools get matching caps and jackets while we looked like a miscellaneous team with plain black caps and suits”.
Many of the team members felt the lack of gear made them appear unprofessional and underprepared and led to a general sense of confusion from other swimmers as it was not clear which school the swimmers were representing.
Then leading up to the All-City Finals, another problem that came up was the team was not able to go practice at the pool because it was closed due to cleaning. Manager Kaityln T states, “We had limited resources like our swimming pool at North Beach. On the week of All Cities, our pool was closed for an annual cleaning. Nobody on our team was told beforehand and that really was a curveball for us.”
Despite all of these obstacles, the Galileo swimmers were ready for the All City Finals, partly due to some swimmers gaining access to other pools. The girls JV team placed 1st with a grand total of 101 points. The girls JV team placed 1st in the girls 200 yard medley relay, 1st for the girls 100 yard IM cutoff ( Ainsley Michael-1st, Kayla Wong- 2nd and Zorianna Mui-3rd), 2nd place for the girls 200 yard free cutoff and 1st for the girls 100 free yard cutoff.
The boys JV division managed to place 4th place with 33 points, thanks mainly to junior standout Xander M. Xander won two 2nd place medals for the 100 individual medley and the 100 freestyle. For the 100 individual medley, he managed to place 2nd with an impressive time of 58.3. For the 100 freestyle event, Xander got an impressive time of 1:07:65. Xander stated, “I felt pretty good about earning medals”.
The swimmers were elated at winning the championship despite all of the things they had to overcome. Medal winning freshman athlete Zorianna M. stated, “If I could frame that moment on a wall or something, I would. I was very elated that we won a plaque for the team, and that I won some medals”.
Team captain Ainsley followed up, stating, “I am so proud of my team for All Cities and how they went. We exceed others’ expectations, as well as our own, beating every other public school in the city in the Junior Varsity girls category besides Washington, who we tied with.”
