PLAINVILLE — After hours of sitting, standing and swimming in the chlorine-scented pool deck, the results for the meet were in. The announcer started with the third-place team, then continued with second place, building the suspense about who finished first at Splash, an all-girls swim meet.
Nonnewaug won the overall Splash championship March 8 in Plainville. All the swimmers contributed to the victory, especially Grace Walkup, a senior captain.
“I was really proud of myself because [we were] champions and I won the [200-meter freestyle],” says Walkup.
Walkup not only placed first in the 200 free, but she also finished second in the 500 frees and helped her two relays, the 200 free and 400 free, to second- and third-place finishes.
“Going into it, I expected it to be a really close race, but it wasn’t,” says Walkup. “I beat people that I didn’t think I was going to beat by a lot more than I expected.”
Walkup wasn’t the only contributor, though. Catherine Viveros and Aubrey Waldron both swam the 200 individual medley, when Waldron barely out-touched Viveros by two seconds, landing them in fourth and fifth place. Emily Stewart was second in the 50 free, and Kristi Sundstrom, a senior co-captain, placed fifth in the 500 free.
Sundstrom said that no matter what place anyone earned individually, each and every person contributed to their win — which isn’t always something the girls get while typically swimming against boys in Berkshire League and state competition.
“I feel that it was really, really cool to actually win something for the swim team,” says Sundstrom. “We’ve never gotten first for anything, and it really came down to every single person’s race, whether they won or not. Even if they got sixth place, that point still went to our win.”
But this win wasn’t as easy as it seemed because there were some challenges behind the scenes of this meet. Head coach Abby Walsh missed some practices leading up to the meet due to health reasons, forcing the captains to take on some additional leadership roles.
“It was definitely more stressful for the captains, especially because we kind of had to move the team along,” Sundstrom said. “We were like authorities — we had to tell the kids where to go to the bathroom, where to change, what time warmup was — and I feel like we kind of got stressed a little bit and weren’t focusing on relaxing and getting our body ready for the races.”
Even with their struggles, Nonnewaug managed to pull out the win. Soon after their big win, the Chiefs competed in the Class S state championships March 18.
“States went really, really well,” says Sundrom. “It’s just kind of hard being in that environment because you’re swimming against so many people that are much faster than you, and it’s a very different type of meet. It’s a very special meet, but it’s really cool to watch all the fast people go.”
Nonnewaug finished 12th out of 22 schools. Maddox Poythress was the Chiefs’ top individual swim finisher, placing 11th in the 100 butterfly and 12th in the 200 IM, while Nonnewaug’s 200 free relay team of Poythress, Walkup, Stewart, and Scott Viveros was also 11th. While no girls from Nonnewaug medaled in the state swim meets, Izzy DeForge was second in Class S diving, a field which included mostly boys.
