The MSMS swim team suited up and dove into their first competition this week at Tupelo Aquatic Center. Two MSMS swimmers, Camille Newman and Jessica Yan, qualified for the North State competition based on their finishing times.

Mabrie Woods also swam with Newman and Yan at the season opener on Monday, Sept. 22, rounding out the group of three. Yan qualified in both the 50 and 100 yard freestyle with respective times of 27.80 and 1:01.85, and Newman qualified in the 100 yard breaststroke with at a time of 1:43.26. Overall, the Lady Waves finished in eighth place with a total of 10 points.

Newman wasn’t completely satisfied with the team’s performance, but she still expressed positive feelings towards the first meet.

“I feel good about how I did and how the team did overall,” team-captain Newman said. “It is clear we have a lot of work to do, but this was a good starting place.”

After missing the last swim season due to loss of motivation, Yan shared her attitude towards success.

“Of course, there is always room for improvement, but having the opportunity to compete against other teams really gave us some idea of how we are doing,” Yan said. “I think that I did pretty good in my events after taking a year off from swimming, so it felt really good getting back into the pool and competing against other swimmers.”

Due to challenges posed by COVID-19 and virtual learning, swimmers have been forced to train off campus and have faced many obstacles. 

“The main challenge I and other swimmers faced is finding an available swimming facility,” Yan said. “Without a pool, it can get pretty hard to get back into shape. We haven’t been able to train together, so we have to find a way to motivate ourselves to do the sets we are given and to do them correctly.”

Swim team coach Chris Chain worried about the task of motivating swimmers but communicated happiness that the team got to swim at all.

“I have been sending workouts each week, so the kids really have to motivate themselves to do them,” Chain said. “Everyone has been challenged with COVID-19, but I am glad we can participate in swimming this season. We just have to be mindful of following protocol.”

Despite these challenges and low turnout to the first meet, Newman still expressed goals of advancing far this season and inspiring juniors to invest in swimming.  

“My personal end goal is to swim at state,” Newman said. “I also want to make sure we have some juniors who really love the sport and want to continue the team for classes to come.”

The MSMS swim team will compete again at Tupelo Aquatic Center on Tuesday, Oct. 23.