The 2019-20 swim team has two very different narratives this fall.

On one hand, the boys’ have a lot of holes in their lineup left to a talented senior class who graduated last spring. Head coach Stephanie Carrasco returns only three swimmers from last year’s state team: senior Justin Tassinari, junior Jake Willis and sophomore Evan Nail.

“I thought we had some pretty solid swimmers, we had some really good leadership, we were lacking with like the younger guys,” Tassinari continues, “but this year we’ve got a lot of great new talent, a lot of freshmen coming in.”

Tassinari is stepping up as a leader to guide the new members to victory, using his experience and patience to teach them the ropes of swim.

“I’m excited to show the younger guys how to set up the deck, just all the little stuff, also how to conduct themselves, I’m excited to show them how to swim,” Tassinari states.

On the other hand, the girls’ have seven members returning who have state-finals experience, including half of their 200-yard freestyle relay team (senior Kalli Fama and sophomore Chloe Convis) who finished seventh in 2018.

“They [past members] have some leadership abilities to help their teammates in those relays, we have a great group of freshmen that are coming in,” Carrasco continues, “[the freshmen] will fill the spots of the teammates that left that relay last year and should be more successful in that relay than what we had last year.”

Now in her senior year, Fama – a Univ. of Michigan commit – is looking to build on her junior campaign in which she took the state title in the 100-yard freestyle, and finished runner-up in the 200-yard free.

“She has every record except for the 100 breaststroke, so her legacy is that she can swim in every event, she could break every record that was out there for us,” Carrasco states. Her impressive scores challenges the new freshmen members who have a strong determination to attempt to beat the times and set up their own legacies.

Both sides of the swim team have a large amount of new members coming from different grades, especially freshmen, that they hold to a high standard. With the combined effort of the coaches, veteran members, and incoming swimmers, the swim team is ready to put in their all to make it to state once again.