The Kickapoo High School girls swim team led a successful season. While COVID-19 ruined many students chances at getting to compete in sports and participate in clubs, the girls swim team was still able to compete and put forth great efforts to preform at there best when it came time to compete. Despite many obstacles, the team managed to pull off another great season.

“This season was definitely interesting because of all the COVID rules we had to follow. We only had 2 travel meets, one of them being state, when we usually have about 5. We lost a lot of our support group not being able to practice with the Nixa swim team,” said sophomore McKenzie Lowry.

However despite this unconventional season, the team was able to win the Ozark Invitational meet and the Southwest Missouri meet. They all worked extremely hard, to achieve all they did.

“We had a lot more practices this year sometimes two a day, we practiced during Christmas and Thanksgiving break and some weekend practices. I think we all knew it would be a hard season but none of us gave up and we just kept pushing through,” said sophomore McKenzie Lowry.

“To prepare for this we have been practicing as much as the weather will allow but a little bit different than we do during a normal season. For big meets like state we “taper” which means we have moderate practices that help build muscle memory instead of having longer more intense practices and tapering also allows us to have the energy to swim the best times at state, ” said senior Paige Lenahan.

The hard work and devotion would bring the team to state, where they would all have good swims along with some podium wins, and junior Ashlyn Moore would medal.

“About a year ago when things started shutting down I wasn’t able to swim for a couple months which set me back but I was super motivated to get back to where I was before and then get even better so I started going to Bader Sports Performance when things opened back up and pushed myself even harder in practice to reach my goal of meadaling at state,” said junior Ashlyn Moore.

Even with COVID-19 and other obstacles in there way the girls swim team was still able to pull off an amazing season.

“I think we made the best out of what we could this season. We had a lot of personal bests and a lot of goals were achieved by multiple girls. Our coach, Peter Hill, always refers to the team as a family and this year I feel we really became one,” said Ashlyn Moore.