Five years ago, the freshmen girls swimming team beat New Trier for the first time in years by one point. Last weekend, this freshmen class beat the Trevians by over 100 points, breaking a meet record and snatching the freshmen conference title.

       “The team definitely looks different this year,” senior Clio Hancock said. “Coming into the season we knew that the underclassmen were going to be strong and they have been proving that to us all season long.”

As a class, the freshmen have already broke five freshmen school recrords, including one that has stood since 1986.

     “[The freshmen] will be a big part of our end of season push,” coach Kevin Auger said.

Two of the top performers on the team are freshmen Erin Long and Samantha Rhodes, who have had particularly strong seasons. Long holds the team’s fastest time in the 100-yard freestyle and Rhodes holds the fastest times in both the 200 and 500-yard freestyle.

     “Coming into this year everyone was very  aware of the impressive freshman class and they definitely haven’t disappointed,” junior Halley Seed said.

      However, while the freshmen on the team have made a big contribution to an impressive season, the upperclassmen provide more solid depth to the team than it has had in previous years. A contribution that will set the stage for a strong postseason.

     “Overall, we’ve been seeing steady improvement and we are really honing in our goals for making state as we get closer to sectionals next week,” senior captain Clio Hancock said.  “We’ve all trained really hard, and everyone’s going to swim pretty fast. It’s going to be a cool thing to see.”

     Hancock is another girls swimming standout performer. She has the fastest times on the team in both the the 100-yard butterfly and 200-yard individual medley, for which she stands undefeated in the CSL conference.

     “I’m looking to have some fast swims to put myself in a good position heading into sectionals,” Hancock said. “As a team we started off strong, since then we have been swimming meet to meet and working on the small things.”

      Post season competetion starts tomorrow with Varsity Conference. The meet is tomorrow, 1:30 p.m., at Niles North.