Maricela Alvarado Powers

Digital Journalism

13 March, 2017

Swimming is a passion of many who love the water and staying active. This winter, our swim team competed against many schools and came out victorious. In the end, it was four boys who made it to state preliminaries. These boys did their best while challenging themselves to achieve their goals. Now, it is time to recap how they did at state!

Before going to state, the team made sure to practice a lot. They especially worked on the freestyle, a category in swimming competition that barely limits on how the people can swim. The Phoenix swimmers also made sure to get their relays done on time. While practicing all of these, their biggest goal was to at least get sixth place in preliminaries to get into finals. Consequently, this is exactly what they did!

Amazingly, Alec Shepherd swam the 50 and 100 yard freestyle during preliminaries. Shepherd landed in 7th place both times, however for the 100 freestyle he tied with another opponent. At the end of the tournament Shepherd had to do a swim off against him, but fell short by 0.07 seconds. Lastly, the whole team worked together to get into finals during the 200 yard freestyle relay. At finals, they remarkably completed the relay in 1 minute and 38 seconds, securing the sixth place medal at state.

While interviewing Deven Wenaus, he explains how he felt while being at state. “It was like a hyper feeling,” the finalist explains. Wenaus also talked about what he liked most about being at state. He says, ”It was incredible to be there with the guys I know, competing together.” Wenaus had a great season and he is planning on swimming next year.

Lastly, the swim team practiced very hard to get into state this year. They fought in preliminaries and landed in the finals. After swimming their best, they placed in sixth. The people of Phoenix High School congratulate Deven Wenaus, Alec Shepherd,  Nathan Watt, and Brent Flynn for their victory. Next year we hope they can go even higher on the leaderboard!