Last Thursday, September 12th, ACP’s Varsity Swim team had a meet against Scottsdale Prep and Seton Catholic. They beat Seton Catholic 191-141 and lost to Scottsdale Prep by 16 points. However, four of the boys on the team successfully broke a school record!

The boys 400 relay, which comprised of Ryan Grey, Logan Sylvester, Taylor Smith, and Andrew Kang, triumphantly broke one of the school records for free relay. Taylor Smith (12), who has been on the school team for four years and is one of the five co-captains, says that “spending time at the pool really floats my boat”. He was kind enough to fill us in on the team’s astonishingly great achievement and his swim life.

Q: What school record did you beat?

A: We beat the 400 free relay time with a 1:45. For reference, that means every swimmer swam at about a 50-55 second 100. This relay also qualified for the state tournament in provisionals.

Q: How did you feel when you found out that you guys broke the record?

A: We were psyched! We try not to get too excited until the official results come out. There’s a lot of gray area in timing, especially at a huge meet or invitational. After the meet we had a fun celebration.

Q: Can you describe the entire moment for me?

A: Our relay was the final event of the entire meet and directly in the middle of the pool. Seton was on our right, and Scottsdale Prep on our left. Right before we raced, the meet director announced the scores- we were only down by about five points. If we could win the heat and beat Scottsdale Prep, we had a true shot at winning the entire meet. All four of us hyped ourselves up before it was our leg of the race; we all went our fastest times yet and tried to beat the teams by our sides.

Q: How did you train for this achievement?

A: We practiced six days a week leading up to the meet. Most of my teammates attended dryland to workout with Coach Bishop before practice, while others (like me) did other sports before or after school so we could get ready outside of the pool. Every single person swam at least a mile a day.

Q: What do you do beforehand to prepare for a meet?

A: Normally, I take a nap or eat a lean protein and carb meal to store energy for the meet. Sometimes the team will go out for lunch or meet somewhere before the meet starts so we can hang out and get ready together. We all take the bus together and warm up with some 200’s before our events come up. It’s a lot of relaxation and stretching.

Q: What do you love the most about swim?

A: There’s an extremely rewarding feeling when you’re moving fast. You feel the water differently when you’re racing. There’s a lot of focus in what you’re doing, but when you get into the right mindset, it’s really just keeping it consistent. It’s a strange amount of relaxation that comes with swimming fast.

Q: Which type of stroke do you think is the hardest? The easiest?

A: The easiest stroke to pick up is by far freestyle, but that doesn’t mean it’s truly easy. It’s an instinctive stroke that anyone can learn, but still takes a lot of practice to master the technique. The most tiring/hardest stroke, in my opinion, is butterfly because it requires so much movement and rhythm, but the same can be said about breaststroke.

Q: Are you planning on swimming in college?

A: I’m not planning on swimming on a college team, but I’m also definitely not giving up the storm. It’s such a simple, fun, and necessary skill to have; there’s just no reason to drop it.

Q: If you could describe yourself as any fish, which would it be?

A: Probably a sea bass because everyone has the same reaction to a sea bass. It’s always like “oh look, I think that’s a sea bass”, but nobody knows for sure because nobody really knows what a sea bass is, and everyone just assumes that everything is a sea bass, when really nobody saw one and everyone’s just confused, and I’m confused and the sea bass is confused.

We always love Taylor’s sense of humor on campus. Congratulations to the boys on this amazing feat! Everyone wishes you a swim-tastic season! Go Knights!