Walking through the hallways at Lakes, it’s uncommon to see someone wearing a shirt that says “Lakes Swimming.” Many people double take when they see those words and always say, “Wait, I didn’t know we had a swim team.” As most people know, Lakes has countless sports but one that not many people know about is the swim team. There is a girls season in early winter and a boys season in late winter. Out of all the students at Lakes, only 3 swimmers have participated this year. These swimmers all swim for their own clubs, then when it comes time, they swim for Lakes in the IHSA Sectionals. Their goal: qualify for state and represent their school in Westmont. It sounds like it can’t be too difficult, but most of the schools that go to Sectionals bring buses full of swimmers, trying to complete the same goal. You can only imagine how intimidating that could be for a single swimmer, watching them all file out of the bus.

Out of the three swimmers, only one of them is a girl. Junior, Julia Pintescu, swims for the Pleasant Prairie Patriots and has been on the swim team at Lakes since she was a freshman. “I’ve been swimming for 10 years,” said Pintescu, “it’s taught me so many things like hard work, discipline, and perseverance.” Swimming for that long made it no question that she would swim for Lakes. If you go to the Sectionals meet, most schools bring 10 or more girls, so it looks a little strange to see Pintescu being the only swimmer for Lakes. “I don’t really mind being the only girl on the team because it’s only one meet,” explained Pintescu. A teammate and friend of Pintescu swims with her at Pleasant Prairie and she also competes at Sectionals, only with Carmel’s High School. Hannah Green has also been swimming for a majority of her life, and her and Pintescu have formed a long lasting friendship. Even though Carmel has multiple swimmers on their team, Green and Pintescu spend a majority of the meet swimming and talking with each other. “It’s really great to see Julia at that meet,” said Green. “She’s a great person to be around and she keeps my attitude positive after a bad race.” Pintescu will continue swimming for Lakes her senior year, and will hopefully swim after her high school career.

Even though it is only one meet of the year, training does not stop for these swimmers. Most of their time after school is spent at the pool, continuing to work on their skills and hoping to drop time in their next race. “We always are looking for more people to join the team,” emphasized Pintescu. “It’s really great to see new faces at the pool.” Swimming is not the typical sport in the area, but it’s a sport that is easy to get into and fun for everyone. Next season, Mr. Gedville, swim team coach, is hoping that people will be more interested in the team and hopefully grow their numbers.