The girls’ swimming and diving team finished strong at the Illinois High School Association State Tournament held at New Trier Township High School on Friday, Nov. 20 and Saturday, Nov. 21. They placed 16th out of 39 schools with a total 24 points. On Friday, the girls competed in the preliminaries during which sophomore Audrey Coffey, senior Caitlin Guccione and senior Sydney Dusel qualified for the finals on Saturday.

Dusel placed first in diving, claiming the title of State Champion with 490 points. This was her third time competing at State and second time winning the competition.  

“It all hit me with my whole family and everyone there supporting me, and it’s just an amazing feeling to end my senior year like this,” Dusel said.

Sophomore Audrey Coffey made it to the finals for the first time this year, finishing in seventh place in the 500-yard freestyle with a 5:00.59 time.

“It felt really good, and it was one of my goals to make finals at State, and I was just really happy that I was able to achieve that,” Coffey said.

Coffey described her main motivation behind her goals.

“I set goals for myself at the beginning of the season, and I saw the whole awards ceremony and people were getting congratulated during my freshman year, so this year I’m like, ‘I wanna actually make it this year,’” Coffey said.

Although remaining on the sidelines, junior Maddie Wagner felt the intensity of the competition as a teammate.

“It was cool to be in the atmosphere, and it’s so fun cheering down at the end of the lane,” Wagner said. “All the races are super close, and we’re jumping up and down cheering ‘Come on, come on!’ waiting for them to touch the wall, and then you look up at the board and check the time.”

The ambition and anxiety significantly escalated from Friday to Saturday, according to Wagner.

“On Friday, it was crazy, there were so many people there, everybody was on deck and they were trying to make State finals, but not everybody was super fast,” Wagner said. “But on Saturday, everybody was super into it, because this is the best of the best of the State, and it meant so much more on the last day because [the girls] wanted to be number one or to get a really good place.”

Coach Mike Adams expressed his gratitude for the girls’ perseverance throughout the course of the season.

“I thought our girls came a long, long way as a team,” Adams said. “We lost a lot of girls from last year’s team, and in the beginning of the year people would beat us pretty easily in the first couple of meets. But we turned that around and really did a nice job all through the season.”

Despite the loss of previous swimmers, Adams has hope for the newcomers’ improvement.

“I think the new swimmers have embraced the tradition,” Adams said. “I think they need to get out there in the offseason and put some time in because the more they do that the better we’re going to be for next year.”  

As a coach, Adams strives not only to improve skill, but also to teach lessons that will help the girls outside of the pool.  

“There are going to do be times where you’re not doing really well and it’s okay,” Adams said. “There’s a goal in mind for the end of the year, and you’ve just got to stay with it, and everything will work out. Honestly, I think that’s the best thing we teach, it’s not about how fast; if you stay with it, you go beyond the swimming world and succeed.”