The HP Swim Team Banquet

Swimmers celebrate a victory-filled season

The swim team celebrated a successful 2017-18 season on Thursday, April 12. The team hosted a banquet in the cafeteria, complete with photos of seniors, poster signings, food, and speeches from captains and seniors.

The swim team has had a very successful season, finishing with both the girls and boys attending the 5A State swim meet. The 12 athletes that competed at State were Felix Van Cauwelaert, Henry Wang, Peter Paulus, Omar Hmimy, Ethan Nguyen, Christina Bambach, Alicia Bi, Taylor Copeland, Maddy Helton, Katherine Huang and Bryanna Wilder. The boys’ team won with only six athletes competing, participating in the boys 200 medley relay (Van Cauwelaert, Wang, Paulus, and Hmimy), 200 free relay (Nguyen, Paulus, Hmimy, and Van Cauwelaert), the 200 freestyle (Van Cauwelaert), and 100 breastroke (Wang and Nguyen). The girls’ team were the first time in three years that a girl had made it to a state meet.

“The swim team really did have a fantastic season, and we hope that the parents can realize how important it is to appreciate everyone’s hard work this year,” freshman Sarah Ho said.

Parents of the swimmers stepped up to order food, cakes and decorations for the banquet. Catering from Blue Mesa and cakes from Central Market were delicious even though swimmers drove home with stained teeth from the colored frosting.

“The parents were so kind to help us set everything up,” freshman Sophia Pan said. “We couldn’t have done the banquet so successfully without them.”

Coach Cole, the head coach of the team, and Coach Ferrin, the assistant coach, gave short speeches before the food was served. Awards were given out to certain swimmers after everyone had finished their meal.

“Watching the awards was really interesting because the captains would announce descriptions of the swimmers before naming them, making it really exciting and suspenseful,” Pan said.

The seniors of the team, Sofia Lara, Ian Leeson, Omar Hmimy, John MacMichael, Christina Bambach, Avery Waco, Christina Bambach, Felix Van Cauwelaert, and Rebecca and Elizabeth Wessman all gave speeches thanking coaches and fellow teammates and saying goodbye. After the speeches, a slideshow was shown to the audience, displaying pictures and videos of the swimmers and a special section for the seniors.

“The slideshow was really well done,” Ho said. “We got to see fun photos of the swimmers from meets and practices, and it was cool to look back from past moments of the season.”

At the conclusion of the banquet, swimmers were allowed to take photos with one another.

“This year’s banquet was a huge success,” Pan said. “The season has been so much fun and I can only hope we have another great one coming.”