“I was super excited about how my senior season ended. I was so proud of myself for finally accomplishing the goals I set years ago. Last year, as a Junior I got 4th in the 100 back but everyone who had beaten me was seniors, so going into this season I knew I had a chance. I knew that if I wanted this, I would have to continue to train hard and put my best effort into every practice. Outside of high school season, I swim for my club team, Michigan Lakeshore Aquatics. It’s a great program and I have amazing teammates to push me past my limits. One thing I knew I had to work on was my underwater kick. Usually, that’s where my race lacks the most so I knew I had to put in a lot of effort to try to get them stronger. I started by having a higher count of dolphins kick off the wall to help me reach further underwater. After I was confident with making it a lot farther off the wall, my goal was to make my kicks stronger. I did that by really focusing on my leg and core strength/power in the weight room and using weights in the water. Going into high school season with that in mind, I continued to work hard all season to stabilize and improve my underwaters. Throughout the season, we completed our usual grind, but closer to state was when it was time to lock in. We worked really hard on paying attention to the little things that were specific to us. I made sure to incorporate fast backstroke into all of my workouts so that my timing was all set. Something else that is really important during championship season is our mental sets. Coach Bowyer leads us through those sets, where we relax our bodies and get to in-vision our meet lineup and races. This helps us to set specific goals within our race but also calms down some nerves. Finally, when we reached the state meet, I was ranked first after prelims. It didn’t really settle in until later when I realized that I could do this. Going into Finals, I was pretty nervous, but I couldn’t let that get in the way. I focused on trusting my training and tried to be as relaxed as possible. When I touched the wall and saw the scoreboard, I couldn’t believe it.” Sr. Makenzie Baldwin said.