Within the past year, three swimmers have broken records and gotten their name placed on the board for all to see, leaving their stamp on the history of the swim team.

According to swim coach Michael Jones, 10 new records have been set in this school within the past three years.

“We have had a lot of success the past three years,” Jones said. “That amount of records in that time period doesn’t happen often at many schools. All of our swimmers and divers are doing an extremely good job. Breaking school records has been a goal of both the girls’ and guys’ teams every year.”

Sophomore Kyle Hendricks broke the previous record of 52.66 in the 100 yard butterfly category with a time of 52.28 this year.

“It was my goal,” Hendricks said. “I came into the meet and I was pretty close before and I was like ‘I think I can get it.’ It took a lot of speed and strength, but I got it.”

Although preparing to break this record included getting physically ready, Hendricks said he also had to prepare mentally.

“Mostly [I] just got myself mentally ready. I tried to not be negative [and] not think of ‘oh it’s too hard’ or ‘that [record] was set by someone a lot cooler.’ I have as good a chance as anyone else.”

Getting over a mental block is just one of the obstacles the swimmers faced. Jones recognized the amount of work it takes to achieve the goal of breaking a record and getting over all the obstacles.

“It takes a lot of hard work to be the best athlete in a particular event to ever swim or dive at this school,” Jones said. “While we have only been around for a little over a decade, there have been some very fast swimmers to come through this school. All the members of the team know that and realize what they need to do to break a record. They also understand the magnitude of the accomplishment. Some of these records could still be up on the record board for years to come. The thought of coming back from college and seeing your name still on the record board is something many members of the team want.”

One student who aspires to that goal is junior Ashley Boyles, who broke the 200 freestyle record twice, the 200 individual medley record, and the 500 freestyle.

“I want to get my records down so that no one will break it and I can come back like 10 years later and my name’s still up on the board,” Boyles said. “There’s some other [records] that I’m considering, but I haven’t quite yet reached where I need to be in order to consider even trying to break that record. I would like to break a couple of the other two freestyle records, maybe the 100 butterfly.”

In order to break those records, Boyles planned out her times and worked hard to get them down in order to beat the previous record.

“They were kind of my goal but I didn’t quite expect them to happen,” Boyles said.  “I calculated out the certain time I’d have to pace each lap to break that record and I would practice that pace constantly when we would practice.”

Boyles’ hard work paid off when she broke her first record, the 500 freestyle, her freshman year.

“The first record I broke I don’t think I’ll forget because it was a Saturday morning meet on Halloween,” Boyles said. “I didn’t quite know the exact time [of the previous record]. I just looked up at the board like ‘okay that’s kind of close’ cause I knew the first part of the time but not the tenths and hundredths. So I asked my coach and he’s like ‘yes, you broke the time record’ and I flipped out. The 500 record, the last time it had been broken was 2009. It was [3] years of no one breaking it.”

Sophomore Kylie Petrilla experienced a similar moment of shock when she broke the women’s diving record in her first diving meet.

“Breaking the record wasn’t [my goal],” Petrilla said. “The only thing that I could really think about is what dive I was doing next. When I first found out that I broke the one of the diving records, [my coach] told me my score. I was in the commons working on basketball cheers with the JV cheerleaders. He came over to me and I screamed and gave him a big hug I was so happy. I told everyone I thought would be excited for me. They were so thrilled that I did such an amazing job and were happy for me.”

While breaking records is beneficial for the team, Jones said that it does not matter whether or not another swimmer breaks a record, the team will continue on their path to success.

“If more are records broken this year, the team will be extremely excited,” Jones said. “If we don’t break any more, but still swim well at the District, Regional, and State meets, we will still be excited.

Breaking records is great, but the swimmers and divers want to beat people from other schools too. They like to race.”