While a place on the podium wasn’t in the cards for members of the Whitewater High School girls’ swim team, they finished the season strong nonetheless.
The team finished a respectable 16th place at state last Friday and according to head coach Gina Foucault, “Sara Foucault, Callie Hebert, Debra Krebs, Kassie Yeazel and Sydney Zidmars “had a fantastic meet to end the season.”
The Whippets started off the night with a 12th place finish in the 200 Medley Relay (Krebs, Hebert, Foucault, Yeazel) going 1:53.81, just a couple tenths off of the school record with “outstanding splits from everyone including lifetime bests from Callie in the Breaststroke 31.78 and Sara in the Butterfly 26.69,” the coach said, adding, It was nice to see Kassie under 0:25 again too.”
Krebs, Foucault said, did well in her first state swim by being right on her best time, “a three second improvement from the beginning of the year and a second faster than their qualifying time.” The girls moved from a 14th seed to 12 in the state as a result.
The 200 Individual Medley was a strong event for WHS as well, according to Foucault, with both individual qualifiers swimming.
“Callie started us off strong with her lifetime best swim of 2:14.86, placing her 12th overall up four spots from her 16th seed. Sara ended up in a very close race finishing just .04 off the coveted 6th place podium spot for a 7th place finish with a season best time of 2:11.75. Sara was able to stay in her 7th place seed position,” she said.
Sara Foucault swam again, putting in her season best time in the 500 Freestyle going 5:20:53 and improving her 13th place seed by finishing 12th. Hebert’s next race was the 100 Breaststroke where she broke her own school record by going 1:08.55, holding her 11th place seed.
“What a great last individual race for Callie,” Gina Foucault said.
Wrapping up WHS’ appearance at the state meet was the 400 Freestyle Relay team of Kassie Yeazel, Sydney Zimdars, Callie Hebert and Sara Foucault, who broke the school record.
“Seeded 13th, the girls put together a fantastic race to finish 10th overall with a 3:43.11, dropping 1.4 seconds off the school record… This was after they dropped four seconds last weekend at the sectional meet,” Foucault said.
According to the coach, Yeazel started off strong with Zimdars in her first state swim following up with her best 100 split (57.13) and Hebert (54.50) and Sara Foucault (54.95) went lifetime bests to round out the relay.
The coach said the show of support at state, and throughout the season, meant a lot.
“Thanks to all the fans that came up to support these five young ladies. We were represented well with more than 60 Whitewater fans at the UW-Natatorium cheering them on. Thanks for all your support this year,” she said.
