The girls swim team had a strong showing with over ten broken school records across the season. They had only lost three meets throughout all of their competitions before the state meet. On top of this, fourteen times that stood on the record board were shattered.

At state, the swimmers broke the records in the 200-yard medley relay, 200-yard freestyle, 100-yard fly, 100-yard freestyle, 100-yard backstroke, 100-yard breaststroke, 200-yard freestyle relay, and 400-yard freestyle relay. They also broke seven meter records across the season.

Besides all the new school records, this was also the first time in almost two decades the girls swim team placed within the top two at state. It was a long and grueling battle to get there over the course of many of the girls’ high school careers.

The team trained hard and pushed themselves to their limits for the last two and half months of the season for the one opportunity to show everyone that they were the best. On finals day in Gillette, the air was heavy with moisture and chlorine. Even more so, the stress and pressure upon the swimmers were immense because this was the first chance in over fifteen years to take home a state championship.

The girls did not show that the pressure was getting to them, starting off well on finals day by winning the first event, the 200-yard medley relay. In the process, they set a new school record with a time of 1:48.27. After the medley relay, the 200-yard events were up, being the 200 freestyle and 200 individual medley. In the 200 freestyle, senior Molly Green took second and in the 200 IM, sisters sophomore Zoe and senior Pippin Robison took second and third respectively. In the shortest event of the meet, the 50-yard freestyle, senior Kelly Moodry placed seventh taking the top place in consolations final.

After the 50, sophomore Alicia Thoney took thirteenth in diving and barely missing finals by 0.7 points. Following diving, the 100-yard butterfly came with junior Taylor Baldacci and P. Robison took second and third in finals. The 100-yard freestyle followed the fly with junior Piper Carroll and senior Olivia Thoney placing second and sixth in finals.

The second relay of the meet came next in the meet after the 500-yard freestyle which no Sheridan swimmers were entered in. The relay was a very close race for first with the relay team of Carroll, Green, Baldacci, and Z. Robison breaking the school record with a time of 1:37.34, but also losing to Laramie by 0.66 seconds and taking second in finals.

The following two events were crucial for a chance at a team victory. The girls had four finals placers and another consolations finals champion. Following the two events, the Lady Broncs were still in the race for the state title.

This left only one relay, the 400-yard freestyle. Laramie had only six points on Sheridan and the winner could not yet be determined until after the relay. The race was incredibly close with Sheridan breaking the school record with a time of 3:34.47, but Laramie broke the state record with a time of 3:33.16, only beating Sheridan by 1.31 seconds. The relay was very bitter-sweet. The team had lost to Laramie by only 10 points in the end but had broken nearly every high school record there was in the process.

After the state meet, head coach Brent Moore said, “I think they did great, we set eight school record out of twelve, and had great swims at the state meet.”