In Timpview’s history of athletics, the women’s swim team has never won state, but they’re hoping to change that this year. They placed second in 2017 and third in 2018. They lost the title last year to Wasatch by a mere three points. The head coach, Jefferson McClain, and swimmers have set high goals this year and hope to take the title this year.
McClain says, “I have faith in our girls. They train hard in and out of the water. They wake up early for practice, go to school, and then practice again in the afternoon. I am confident in their ability to swim fast and I know we’re gonna do great things at state.”
Like McClain, the girls were certain they’d win state in 2020, but there have been some setbacks. Senior Akalia Bostock had surgery in early January to fix a torn ACL and can’t swim. In 2019, she had 2 impressive individual races and finished 3rd in the 200 yd individual medley (IM) and 1st in the 100 yd freestyle. With these two races alone, she earned 36 points for Timpview. It is hard to know how state will pan out with the loss of this teammate.
Although Bostok’s injury seems gloomy, the setback has not tainted the team’s overall drive. There were several wins for the Timpview girls at the regions meet on Friday. Senior Rachel Oyler began the season with shoulder problems, but came out of regions with 2 golds, one in the 100 yd butterfly and one in the 100 yd freestyle. She was seconds off from both of her high school records in these events. Sophomore Annie Robinson crushed it in both of her races and placed 2nd in the 500 yd freestyle and 3rd in the 100 yd breastroke with a time of 1:07.26. Freshman Annie Reichner took 2nd in the 200 IM. Reichner was also just 0.19 seconds shy of the high school 100 yd backstroke record (58.59) set by senior Kate Hansen in 2019. She has high goals to break that record at state. Junior Gracie Crandall performed impressively in her events. Gracie took 2nd in the 100 yd freestyle by 0.5 seconds to Oyler. Hansen proved to the other teams that she meant business when she slashed the 12-year-old record for the 100 breastroke by 0.89 seconds which now puts her name on the record board for not one, but two individual records.
Olympus and Wasatch High are two threats, but Timpviews hopes of winning remain high. It’ll be another nail-bitingly close year but maybe with the cheering of Timpview spectators, they can pull it off. Come cheer for you fellow T-Birds on February 14-15th at BYU!
For more information about times of the top male and female 5A swimmers, click here.