The Grand Junction girls swim and dive had a very successful weekend placing second overall at Conference Championships. 24 girls from the swim team and 1 diver, Lilly Rath, competed in the annual meet which gives many of the girls a last chance to qualify for State which is the following week. The meet had an unusual feel compared to all of the previous meets this season. It was a two day meet with Friday being preliminaries and Saturday being finals. The first day, the meet was somewhat comparable to the meets from this season. Many girls from the team competed to try to make the spots for finals day. A lot of girls made it to finals the next day in a chance to compete against the best of the best. For the final day there is a limited number of swimmers that compete because there’s only 2 heats per event. The second heat has the people with the fastest times in the event. Conference Championships make a big deal of celebrating the swimmers who’ve gotten this far. On the final day the swimmers walk up to the blocks in a line so the crowd can celebrate them. For the second heat the swimmer with the fastest seed time gets to choose the walk up song for the group. 

Emily Hardin, a freshman at Palisade said, “Conference was such a unique and fun experience for me. I loved the way the meet functioned and how they recognized the swimmers who made it this far with all the hard work they’ve put in. I’m also very excited for State this coming week, and I think it’s going to be such an exciting experience especially as a freshman.”  

With the Conference Championships being such a success, we wish the State girls the best of luck this week in Denver!